The voice and vintage-R&B vibe of Joss Stone's 2003 debut, The Soul Sessions, were so at odds with reality -- how could the second coming of Aretha be a lily-white British teen? -- that it's still hard to believe. But not only does Mind, Body & Soul repeat the trick,...
Stagebeat Last Night of Ballyhoo brilliantly mixes Southern and Jewish gentility and bigotry in a slice-of-life presentation. When Eastern European Jew Joe Farkas (Jeff Silver) pays a visit to his boss Adolph's (Rusty Allison) family (the "right kind of Jews" from Germany), romance and drama ensue. It's December 1939; Atlanta...
Named after the act of two lesbians sitting with legs interlocked, rubbing their genitals together, New York's Scissor Sisters are exactly what the post-election "red states" fear most about the bicoastal "blue states." After all, as keyboardist/bassist/group epicenter Scott "Babydaddy" Hoffman remarks, "It would only take a little white to...
DJ Anthony B set dancehall ablaze in 1996 with the searing single "Fire Pon Rome," which condemned several Jamaican leaders and was promptly banned from the island's airwaves. He continues his lyrical denunciations on Untouchable, his first album for Miami's Togetherness Records, addressing topics ranging from racial profiling ("Love I...
Lunafest passes through SAT 11/6 How can you perk up downtrodden women without stuffing thousands of plastic surgery dollars into their chest compartments? Easy. Go to the movies. Lunafest -- a national showing of short films by, for, and about women -- explores the mysterious craters and dark sides of...
There was Iraq, of course. The mess hall bombing in Mosul, the battle of Fallujah, the Rumsfeld unthinking rejoinder about driving through hostile terrain without armored vehicles. And the presidential election. Who could ever forget that? But news is also what happens in the swirls and eddies at the edges...
Oblivious to the scrutiny of a dozen or so onlookers, at 7:07 p.m., Joe Amato plucks the 400th needle of the day from the stainless-steel tray. He swivels on his stool back to his subject, Tim McDanel, who is lying shirtless on his stomach in a fully reclined dentist's chair...
Andy Young won the prize for being the first awake: At 2:30 a.m. the perennial chili cook-off competitor, nervous and unable to sleep, arose to download the theme song to Gilligan's Island and burn it onto a CD. Next up was Ralph Kalar, a wiry hardass who took his first...
During a recent CD-release party for glitch punk Otto Von Schirach in Miami, a crazy-looking couple stands out from the crowd, seeming as if they just left the Greyhound bus station and happened to wander into the club on a whim. He's clad in a neon-splashed track suit and fishnet...
Two outs, bottom of the ninth, and our team is getting its ass thoroughly pounded in what has been a disappointing season for South Florida music festivals. It's 11 months into the year, and there hasn't been a single, all-encompassing rock 'n' roll fiesta -- something that caters equally to...
Metallica used to get into fistfights onstage, turn dressing rooms into latrines, and rip through so many cans of beer that Alcoa stock would rise with each tour. So it's little wonder that, two years ago, band members paid $40,000 a month to a sports therapist to help them deal...
Amadeus: Peter Shaffer's play about the life and death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a satisfying potboiler, and John Felix is splendid as the villainous Antonio Salieri, a hard-working but mediocre composer who seethes with jealousy and despair when Mozart effortlessly proves his musical genius. Director Richard Jay Simon ably...
Trying to decipher a painting -- or even knowing where to look -- can be like trying to find one's car keys at 4 a.m. in a drunken stupor. But that's not the case in Pamela Larkin Caruso's exhibit "Colors of the Heart, Mind, and Soul." Her minimalist oil paintings...
If South Florida theaters were planets, Miami's Mad Cat would be off in a separate galaxy. The gritty, award-winning ensemble works out of a small performance space on lackluster Biscayne Boulevard, putting on shows that are unique to this region. They're mostly about ordinary South Floridians with basic problems of...
What you might call "an elderly woman's breasts" Alix Olson calls "witch titties." What you might describe as "breastfeeding" she considers "sticking baby boys' lips on our nipples." And what you might refer to as "vaginal fluid" Olson calls "cunt juice." This is why she gets paid to run off...
From Pussy to penises, Sally Timms really covers all her bases. The English-born, Chicago-based performer has played the roles of musician, author, actor, and activist since joining the legendary Mekons in 1986. Pussy, the King of the Pirates was the Kathy Acker-inked lesbian opera that Timms starred in nine years...
With Euro-heavyweights Múm and B. Fleischmann on its roster, Berlin-based Morr Music has been a consistent crucible for upbeat glitch since 1999. Its latest offering, the Go Find's Miami, is no exception. More accessible than its other esoteric labelmates, the Go Find is committed to bridging the gap between indie...
Rebecca Blackwood looks small and grandmotherly seated before a shrimp salad at Shirttail Charlie's Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. A petite 63-year-old with a round, dimpled face, she seems almost dwarfed by the high-rimmed salad in a shell. The impression is quite a contrast from the image she projected earlier that...
Singin' in the Rain, a lighthearted film, has been translated into a Broadway musical. It is 1927, and talkies have come into vogue. Diva Lina Lamont's voice is so dreadful that they dub in the angelic chanteuse Kathy Selden's (Margot de la Barre). Things get sticky when Lina (Laura Summerhill)...
Luddites, fear not -- Mouse on Mars has not come to alienate you. On this, their eighth full-length, the Mice instead demonstrate a keen interest in nesting within more traditional song structures. And while no one's going to mistake Mouse on Mars for, say, Harry Nilsson anytime soon, Radical Connector...
The first time Thomas Lyttle dropped acid, he had a bad trip. His high school friends had to sit on his chest just to keep him from flailing around the room. Terrified, the 16-year-old thought he was going to die, or at least lose his marbles. "I took too much,"...
STAGEBEAT The Tale of the Allergist's Wife mixes laugh-out-loud comedy, philosophical dialogue, and a modern-day midlife crisis. Marjorie (Charlotte Sherman) is having a breakdown following the death of her therapist. She's given up her desperate search for fulfillment through writers like Kafka, Hesse, Sexton, and Plath, and spends her days...
