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7/28 HARD ROCK LIVE: Steely Dan 7/29 REVOLUTION LIVE: Best of Both Worlds (Van Halen Trib), Diary of an Ozzman (Ozzy Osbourne Trib) RESPECTABLE STREET: MASS PROPAGANDA: Klub Cult: Kink Party FTX ARENA: Swedish House Mafia 7/30 RESPECTABLE STREET: The Darling Fire, Embers Dawn, 33 Lion REVOLUTION LIVE: Rabbit in the Moon, Icey, Kimball Collins, Monk, AK1200 NB BANDSHELL: Miami Girls Rock Camp PROPAGANDA: Mad Props Presents Domedy (Dominatrix Comedy) ARTS GARAGE: Start Me Up - Rolling Stones Trib 7/31 HARD ROCK LIVE: Daryl Hall, Todd Rundgren 8/3 RESPECTABLE STREET: Enterprise Earth, Within Destruction, Sentinels, Great American Ghost & Death of a Deity

8/4 RESPECTABLE STREET: Anthony Green MATHEWS: Jose Almonte PAMM: Lotus Collective BROWARD CENTER: Buddy Guy, John Hiatt 8/5 THE PEACH: Upcycled Skateboard Art Show by Valet Goods REVOLUTION LIVE: Dance Gavin Dance, Royal Gods, Body Thief GRAMPS: Donzii, Jacuzzi Boys ARTS WAREHOUSE: First Friday RESPECTABLE STREET: Tyler Lyle of The Midnight PROPAGANDA: Coney Island Freak Show MATHEWS: Spider Cherry ARTS GARAGE: The Damon Fowler Band CITADEL: Silvana Estrada 8/6 RESPECTABLE STREET: Best Night Ever 2010’s Dance Party REVOLUTION LIVE: Carnival of Crue (Motley Crue Trib), Cult Revolution (Cult Trib) HARD ROCK STADIUM: The Weeknd, Doja Cat THE PEACH: Art Walk MATHEWS: Touch & Go (Cars Tribute) PROPAGANDA: Ether Coven Release Party

SUNSET COVE AMP: Slightly Stoopid, Pepper, Common Kings, Fortunate Youth ARTS GARAGE: Libra Sene w/ Sounds of Love

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8/7 MATHEWS: Mick & Billy

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8/11 GRAMPS: Acid Dad PROPAGANDA: Gunnar Hill FILLMORE MB: Enanitos Verdes MATHEWS: Jordan Richards PAMM: Anemoia UNSEEN CREATURES: Comedy w/ Connie

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8/12 FILLMORE MB: Enanitos Verdes REVOLUTION LIVE: Northlane, Silent Planet, Loathe, Avoid PROPAGANDA: Dark Wave Disco Party MATHEWS: Project X Band ARTS GARAGE: The French Horn Collective 8/13 RESPECTABLE STREET: Gimme Gimme Disco REVOLUTION LIVE: AudioEcho (Chris Cornell Trib), The Pantera Experience (Pantera Trib), Still Alive (Pearl Jam Trib) MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Monsieur Periné PROPAGANDA: Black Denim Rage, Killed by Florida, Midnight Vice, Eternal Punishment GRAMPS: Better Than This, Palomino Blond, Playkill*, Frogs Show Mercy MATHEWS: 46 & Tool/Products of Rage ARTS GARAGE: Sarge - Homeless to Hilarious 8/14 MATHEWS: Jose Almonte 8/17 REVOLUTION LIVE: BLXST, Buddy GRAMPS: Crowbar, Spirit Adrift, Bleeth, Body Blow 8/18 ITHINK AMP: Jack Johnson PROPAGANDA: Fuakata, Trinidad Suave, Zoo Peculiar PAMM: Ciel Trio LINCOLN’S BREWERY: Backroom Sessions Artist Showcase 8/19 RESPECTABLE STREET: DJ Xact THE PEACH: Lavola (Radiohead Tribute) PROPAGANDA: The Chans, Rude Television, The Floridians MATHEWS: Palm Beach Country Band ARTS GARAGE: Smooth STB - Santana Trib 8/20 ITHINK AMP: Dave Matthews Band PROPAGANDA: Rain Boar DNTN HOLLYWOOD: ArtWalk MATHEWS: Spred the Dub ARTS GARAGE: CELEBRATE- Three Dog Night Trib FPL SOLAR AMP: Teyana Taylor 8/21 ITHINK AMP: Dave Matthews Band MATHEWS: Jordan Richards GRAMPS: Caveman Cult, Striations, Pain Appendix, Human Fluid Rot, Ruah 8/23 FTX ARENA: Rogers Waters FPL SOLAR AMP: The Kid Laroi

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/24 THINK AMP: The Black Keys, Band of orses, Early James

/25 AMM: Ben Beal

/26 EVOLUTION LIVE: The Chili Poppers (RHCP ib), Subliminal Doubt (No Doubt Trib) ESPECTABLE STREET: Heroes vs Villains Party ROPAGANDA: Caskey & Doobie MATHEWS: Switch N’ Whisky RTS GARAGE: Garage Queens HINK AMP: Santana, Earth Wind & Fire

/27 HE PEACH: Feunicades: “Grit for the Masses” Zine Release w Night Founation meets Doris Dana, Rainboar, ymbols, DJ Strangewave EVOLUTION LIVE: PJ Morton, DJ Arie Spins ESPECTABLE STREET: Emo Night Brooklyn ROPAGANDA: Mad Prop Comedy Night RAMPS: Stillblue, Mila Degray, Moving in Slow MATHEWS: Havoc 305 Band RTS GARAGE: Soulful Femme EAT CULTURE: Backroom Sessions Artist howcase

/28 RAMPS: Seafoam Walls - FREE SHOW! ponsored by Sunnyside, PureHoney Magazine & Jitney Books ESPECTABLE STREET: Thornhill & Moodring MATHEWS: Mike Guido

/30 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Peaches ARD ROCK STADIUM: Red Hot Chili eppers, The Strokes, Thundercat

/1 MIZNER AMP: UB40

/2 500 BLOCK OF CLEMATIS: UMBLEFEST SIX: Day One

eaturing cumgirl8, Immaterial ossession, Leah Wellbaum Slothrust), Liquid Pennies, ostface, Gal Musette, agittarius Aquarius, DoNotAir, Monster Teeth, Dirtbike, mily Blaylock, Mila Degray, Nick County, Rick Moon, Kenny , GuyPal, The Basement resents, Thank God It’s Drag

/3 500 BLOCK OF CLEMATIS: UMBLEFEST SIX: Day Two

eaturing Spaceface, he Stargazer Lilies, Gal Musette, hlorinefields, The Dreambows, Violet Silhouette, Brett Staska, Daddy, Rude Television, Mold!, aper Carcass, Babe Honey, MRENC, Kenny 5, Machine Gun Girl ft Eden, Sandman Sleeps, he Basement Presents, World enowned Elvis

WWW.BUMBLEFEST.COM

VENTS@PUREHONEYMAGAZINE.COM DS@PUREHONEYMAGAZINE.COM

JIM HERRINGTON

THE BLACK KEYS & BAND OF HORSES

by Carly Cassano

Some of you know I grew up in Buffalo, New York. Since there are lots of Buffalonians in the West Palm Beach area, people generally know that Buffalo is not upstate New York, it’s western New York. Which means it’s more like Akron, Ohio than Brooklyn. It’s more Great Lakes than the Atlantic. To me, that means I share a formative ear with Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, the duo that is The Black Keys.

THE BLACK KEYS

From the gritty first LP by these Akron blues-rock revivalists, 2002’s “The Big Come Up,” to their arena-rocking rebound in 2011, “El Camino,” to this year’s release, “Dropout Boogie,” I have sensed the sounds of the summers of my youth: incessantly roaring bugs, buzzing heat, electric breezes, freezing cold water. And with it, a comforting ease-to-urgency ratio — where there is winter, after all, you don’t forget it’s coming.

When a band has been around and loved for this long, it has lived with the seasons. It has been present for shifts in our political environment, it has adapted to AutoTune, it has seen indie culture grow and fade and persevere. It has come up for air with a new album every year or so and toured in between. It is truly perennial. For two friends who dropped out of college to make it as one of the biggest small rock bands of the last two decades, I’d say a boogie is absolutely in order. The first track, “Wild Child,” opens like a dance of gratitude for enduring and kicks off another amazing album.

I used to ride the indie train, jumping off at every dirty venue or college festival, catching acts like Bands of Horses in their formative Seattle and Sub Pop label years before the masses and major labels caught on.

It’s with unironic affection that I still tell people about the first time I saw them: by chance, on a tiny outdoor stage somewhere in Massachusetts, and I felt as if I was having a religious experience. Frontman BAND OF HORSES Ben Bridwell had the voice of an angel and looked like he’d fallen from the skies.

That would have been around 2006, when Band of Horses debuted with “Everything All the Time.” Through label, lineup and location changes, Bridwell has carried on creating a body of existentially titled LPs including 2007’s “Cease to Begin” and 2016’s “Why Are You OK.” Their first album of the pandemic era is this year’s “Everything Is Great.”

While I lost touch with most of my old ramblers — the friends in bands I followed on tour or who sat with me while I waited to talk to Bradford Cox after a Deerhunter show — I still feel connected to the music. Looking back, I think about why so much of the music I loved was made exclusively by white guys, and I wonder if I intentionally withdrew from what was once a kind of identity. But I also want to know how it would feel to see The Black Keys, Band of Horses and opener Early James (who records for Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label) this summer under the glowing shade of the amphitheater, and to see what that audience looks like today.

Music rolls on with or without you; like a snowball or an avalanche, it picks up and packs in new fans. Our favorite indie music is not just the bands; it’s their struggle.

We’ve seen how hard it is even for brilliant musicians to make a career of it, how rare the successes are.

So as you’re spreading out on the amphitheater lawn this summer with snacks and blankets, spare a thought for all the untamed heart and soul that has been poured into rock ’n’ roll music from its first days to today. You might be older and more nostalgic now, and less likely to get loose and go crazy, but some part of the “Wild Child” in you that The Black Keys are talking to is still in there.

The Black Keys, Band of Horses and Early James play 7pm Wednesday, Aug. 24 at iTHINK Financial Amp in West Palm Beach. theblackkeys.com x bandofhorses.com

BLAIR BARNETTE

THE STARGAZER LILIES

by David Rolland

The wall of sound and fuzz that encompassed The Stargazer Lilies’ first five albums seemed very much a part of the frigid Northeast where they came from. Their downcast vibe, reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins, felt emblematic of the cold New York City and Pennsylvania stomping grounds where they were conceived and recorded.

Not so for their newest LP, “Cosmic Tidal Waves,” due in October.

“We moved to the Tampa area to help John’s ailing mother,” singer Kim Field told PureHoney in an interview, referring to her husband, band co-founder and guitarist John Ceparano. “We’re Florida-based now.”

Their new location, Ceparano said, has infiltrated every aspect of The Stargazer Lilies: “Florida inspired the entire record right down to the fact that there’s the word ‘wave’ in the title. Living in a tropical climate, all the palm trees and the sandy beaches seeped into the record.”

The pair describe it as a summer record, so it’s only fitting to release the album’s first single, “Bending the Lines,” on July 29 when the mercury is at its highest. “We wrote ‘Bending the Lines’ down here,” Field remembers. “Before we moved here we were visiting and rented an amazing home in Lakeland. It was an all-glass house that was architecturally inspiring to make music.”

Before anyone will have a chance to hear “Cosmic Tidal Waves,” the album, South Florida fans can experience the new tracks in a live setting when The Stargazer Lilies headline Bumblefest in downtown West Palm Beach on Saturday, September 3. The festival has particular significance to the band since they met half their members at the 2016 edition of Bumblefest. Field and Ceprano were impressed enough by the opening act of former Pompano Beach psychedelic rock band Peyote Coyote that they recruited two of their members, drummer Cari Gee and multiinstrumentalist Jake Stuart, to join The Stargazer Lilies.

Ceprano said, “Gee was the one who instigated this record. We’d toured with her, but this was the first time we ever collaborated together. I was the one who always drummed on the albums before, but I sucked on the drums.”

The new album will be the first release on the band’s brand new Floravinyl Records imprint. “It’s a label for our music. We will [also] release music from Soundpool, our former band. Maybe somewhere down the line we’ll put out music from other people.”

Soundpool was the band that Field and Ceprano were in before

The Stargazer Lilies. When this w years previously for Miami New Tim Soundpool had grown a bit too for their tastes. Field specified, “W to do something moodier and mo and powerful. We wanted it to be

Ceprano at the time wasn’t to shoegaze, the guitar-effect gen My Bloody Valentine were way “They were doing real rock future audiences 30 years to catch up w lot of people as shoegaze, but to

He thought at that time they classic psychedelia, “”We’re into ourselves as updated versions of Cream. We try to be a three-piec possible, but we keep the future i

Nowadays the Stargazer Lilies co their new album into, rather the Florida weather. “I’ll take the ho any day. You don’t have to go ou just to get anywhere. Just about took place because of incleme van on the way to a show at Mer inclement weather,” Ceprano co

The Stargazer Lilies perform Satur West Palm Beach. bumblefest.co

writer interviewed them last, six mes, the duo said it was because dance-oriented and electronic We had a mood shift. We wanted ore melancholy that was also loud e simple and stripped-down.”

oo keen on being described as nre of dream pop. “Bands like y ahead of their time,” he said. e with their guitar effects. It took with. I guess we come across to a o us we’re a lot more.”

should be classified instead as o cosmic, space stuff. We think of f the Jimi Hendrix Experience or ce putting out the biggest sound in mind.”

ouldn’t care less what bin you put ey’re just happy to be in the hot ottest heat over the coldest cold utside to shovel feet of snow here t every one of our car accidents ent weather. We totaled a tour rcury Lounge in New York due to oncluded. “This is much better.”

rday, Sept. 3 at Bumblefest DNTN om

ANA AZAROV

GAL MUSETTE

by Abel Folgar

Working the piano, and the open mics and music halls of her hometown of San Clemente, Calif., Gal Musette arrived with an act of true brashness: She topped The Magnetic Fields’ “69 Love Songs” feat with her own collection of 70 songs — when she was 14.

Musette’s rise as a baroque pop prodigy and talented chanteuse isn’t beholden to one-upping darlings of indie pop, but it didn’t hurt.

Like the bygone scene that inspired her pseudonym — “bal musette” is nostalgic accordion music played in French dancehalls more than a century ago — she evokes an older world.

And that is what really caught the ear of such luminaries as the Fields’ Stephin Merritt, who she opened dates for on tour, and Rufus Wainwright, who she duetted with on record.

Now in her 20s, Musette — who will be performing at Bumblefest — tells PureHoney that her early listening was twofold. “My mom is a French professor so we listened to Françoise Hardy, France Gall and Cœur de pirate,” says the musician born Grace Freeman, “whereas my dad is broader in his taste, from Björk, to Emmylou Harris, to the psychobilly of the Cramps.”

“When I was younger,” she says, “I couldn’t play an instrument so I danced, but I always loved being a part of the music more than anything. Once I started playing piano and discovered I could not only be a part of the music, but actually write it, that changed the game for me.” Her own cited influences range expansively from Nina Simone to The Cure. Add in the Irving Berlininspired piano training her grandfather gave her, and Musette encompasses the melancholic sweetness of bossa nova, the grandiosity of show tunes and the sobering straightforwardness of folk – in one mellifluous movement.

Her 2021 debut, “Backwards Lullaby,” explored romantic hopelessness and more ethereal questions of reality and acceptance over sweeping guitars and classical piano elements that elevated her beautiful vocals. “Pendulum,” slated for release next year, features Michiganite French ye-ye pop singer and one-woman orchestra Via Mardot — Musette’s recent collaborator on an EP of “Backwards Lullaby” reimaginings — and the Detroit-based drummer, percussionist and producer Adam Schreiber. Whatever that future brings, it promises to be sweet, melodic and true to Musette’s unique form.

Gal Musette plays Bumblefest Sept. 2 & 3 DNTN West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com

CUMGIRL8

by Carly Cassano

“Fucking love South Florida!!” That’s Chase Noelle, drummer extraordinaire of cumgirl8, the NYC post-punk band that’s one of the headliners at Bumblefest 2022. The band was in Miami for New Year’s, and as Chase told PureHoney, “I was wearing a giant stuffed Pink Panther and underwear from our first fashion collection. It was amazing lol…. I didn’t really know it was going to be like that. Our friend Dani [Miller of Surfbort] invited us down and all of a sudden we were in this whole production. It was also just so nice to spend the beginning of the year together and go swim in your beautiful ocean.”

Altogether, cumgirl8 are Lida Fox (bass), Veronika Vilim (guitar), Avishag “Avi” Cohen Rodrigues (guitar) and Chase. They all sing. And they’re all superstars. They’re fashion designers and models, they’ve been in other amazing bands, they have solo projects. They’re funny.

It’s easy to see they’re kindred spirits making art that’s both intentional and intuitive. Lots of spectrums are being traversed in the cumgirl8 universe.

The description on their latest track “dumb bitch” includes a quote by Lida that “gender and sexual politics are the overarching point of the song, but it also gets into how these dynamics play out in a society ruled by capitalism.” Personal, sexual liberation is obviously important to their philosophy. As Chase explained by e-mail, “[I]t’s very fun and meaningful to create a style that reflects our sound, our politics, and helps connect us to people in different ways...like the bands before us[.]” But it’s not only about self-expression. Like Vivienne Westwood’s SEX boutique, sustainable fashion, and support of Wikileaks, cumgirl8 get how activism and art have always been entwined. They retweet unions, demand budget cuts to the NYC police, and do telethons with money going to orgs that support Black trans youth and the unhoused and immigrants’ rights groups trying to abolish ICE. I’m not trying to overstate this — you only need to come see them perform at Bumblefest to see what I mean; for instance, Chase shared a story about one of their first shows where “Lida chucked a cake at the audience like a baseball and then Veronika threw Avishag into them right after…but Avi started to fall while she was crowd surfing so Veronika jumped to save her and got caught on the barricade!

Veronika sprained her foot saving Avi. So the whole tour she had crutches. But honestly it was a serve.” — I’m just trying to share what this band can mean to us. It can mean finding out about ourselves

and breaking down barriers so w comfort, safety and style.

For good reason, they’re compare ’90s club scenes that empowered and Latinx LGBTQ people, but for into them, I thought about Pete S interview with cumgirl8, Lida respon censored by media platforms: “w YouTube, and restricted on our w though we censor ourselves cons of America’s greatest protest singe about being blacklisted by the U.S like, self-censorship is necessary, unethical.

The Internet, as cumgirl8 see it, is State as well as a state of being. T private and public is ever shorter. cumgirl8 in us all. Through their web whole vibe, they’re showing us we horniness) in our own beautiful way in a particularly absurdist way, full the future (alien vibrations) and em been uniquely cultivated by classic

Chase expanded on their last tim electric in the same way NYC and you want a Cuban coffee and th life advice from someone’s abue Very meaningful.” cumgirl8 play Bumblefest Friday, bumblefest.com

POSTFACE

by Tim Moffatt

“Don’t quote me…” is one of the first things Greg Johnson from Postface says in our interview. It quickly becomes abundantly clear that it will be impossible to proceed without inviting lawsuits, bad feelings and certain damnation. This intrepid journalist decided instead to track down any exes, illegitimate children, dead pets or past prison pals who might hold forth about Postface. All politely said “hell no,” certain that any association with the band would be trouble.

Luckily, one person scoffed at the law, the Devil and polite society in order to talk good times in bad places with shady people: Fausto Figueroa, drum lord of South Florida, who played alongside Postface with his band LOAD all through the ’90s.

“Those guys came from Pittsburgh, they could have moved anywhere, Miami, Fort Lauderdale but they all landed in Deerfield Beach,” Figueroa confided to PureHoney. “ … they were truly South Florida’s own Butthole Surfers!”

He continued: “LOAD and Postface were connected at the hip in the ’90s … when we started playing with each other, we made them harder and they made us weirder … they should have been huge, but they were just too weird, I guess? Postface was my favorite band of that era, best band of the ’90s.” (Ed note: PureHoney publisher’s favorite as well.)

What we do know, based on an FBI file procured using the Freedom of Information Act, Postface do now and have consisted of the aforementioned Johnson as well as Steve “Wolfie” Johnson, Ricky Ambrose and Bosky “the Wooden Dynamo” since 1989.

According to somewhat reliable sources, Postface are a very positive band started with a specific group of people that will continue on ad infinitum. Reportedly, they have over 400 songs to cull from for this rare public sighting yet they’ve decided to do a completely new set for Bumblefest. Or maybe not? Off the record, Bigfoot’s attorney says these guys might sometimes embellish but they always show up. And on a final note, “The more you chew it, the thicker it gets.” Greg said I could quote him on that.

Postface reuinte for Bumblefest Friday, Sept. 2 DNTN West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com

ed to The Slits, Kim Gordon and the d women, the feminine, and Black r some reason when I was getting Seeger. I think it’s because in one nded to questions about their being we were banned from Instagram, website for being too sexual, even stantly.” I recalled Seeger — one ers and activists — said something S. government in the ‘60s that was but state-imposed censorship is

an extension of ourselves. It is the The spectrum of personal, political, . So the band wisely considers the b series, “the 1-900”, their music, their can express our humanity (and our ys. cumgirl8 express their humanity of nostalgia (furbies), reimagining mergent strategy (neon), that’s also cal dance and music.

me here: “I feel like South Florida is d New Orleans is. Like, one second he next, you’re getting incredible ela while she brushes your hair….

Sept. 2 DNTN West Palm Beach.

LINDSEY BYRNES

we, too, can traverse this world in

LEAH WELLBAUM

by David Rolland

If you play that game at Music-Map where you type in a band and all kinds of similar acts bubble up, you might be a little thrown by the search returns for singer and guitarist Leah Wellbaum’s band, Slothrust. There’s Annabel Alum and Great Grandpa hovering close by, and they certainly share similarities with Bostonbred, California-based Slothrust: All three have frontwomen belting out guitar-heavy tunes.

But it is strange that the database doesn’t also reach farther back for peers, since Slothrust also channel some of the early-’90s distaff alternative boom embodied by Liz Phair, PJ Harvey and Juliana Hatfield. Even considering the generational and gender spectrum, Wellbaum — who identifies as queer and gender fluid, and uses “she” and “they” — occupies that lane of the confessional singer-songwriter who also digs volume and distortion.

And shredding. “There’s a culture where women haven’t been as encouraged to be loud and take up space,” she told Guitar World last year. “Guitar solos are the opposite of that.”

With Wellbaum playing a solo voice-and-guitar set at Bumblefest, fans might or might not hear solos, but they’ll get to experience Slothrust songs pared to their core. Across five Slothrust albums over the last decade, Wellbaum has conjured a melodically literary world mixing magical realism and vérité. This year’s release, “Parallel Timeline,” has some notably heavy, grungy production, so it will be fascinating to hear how those tracks resonate “unplugged.”

With Slothrust touring the UK as of press time, Wellbaum was unavailable to talk with PureHoney. But in a recent interview with GoPride Chicago she sounded confidently in her element even when not accompanied by a band. “I also play live for yoga meditation classes,” she said. Wellbaum added that she’s working out the contours of an albumlength composition of improvised guitar over ambient soundscapes. “I want to make that record in front of an audience because improvisation is important to me,” she said. “In those settings, I am reading the room’s energy and playing based on that.”

Leah Wellbaum (Slothrust) plays Bumblefest Friday Sept. 2 DNTN West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com

SPACEFACE

by Abel Folgar

Jake Ingalls’ trajectory through the lysergic streams of psychedelic rock is the worthy subject of a biography. From adoring fan to makeshift stagehand to studio collaborator, Ingalls forged a remarkable relationship with venerated rockers The Flaming Lips, even bringing his pal Matthew Strong aboard the Lips’ caravan as guitar tech.

So it’s no wonder that Ingalls and Strong, musical friends since middle school, would end up in an outfit like Spaceface, a psych rock band that’s uniformly informed by the pleasant-living bacchanalia of ’70s soft rock and the jammy, “this band has chops” intricacies of prog. Borne out of Memphis and honed in Los Angeles, Spaceface is rounded out by fellow founding member Eric Martin (another childhood pal), Daniel Quinlan, Katie Pierce. On this run Jake and Eric are joined by Garet Powell on drums and Marina Aguerre on bass and back up vocals.

“The three of us that started the band have all openly admitted that while we played guitar a little bit before, the desire to start and perform in a band was ignited after we saw ‘School of Rock,‘” Ingalls said to PureHoney. “We all kinda converged with discovering Deerhunter, Tame Impala, Beach House and a few other bands emerging around that time. These days, Eric is more keyed into ’60s style song writing and arrangements and I’m still focused on wacky tones, sneaky psych and psych pop music.”

The band makes the most of its incredible chemistry and chameleon adaptability to varying producers and collaborators. Since bursting onto the scene in 2012 as featured artists on the Flaming Lips’ conceptual take on King Crimson, “Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn,” Spaceface have delivered a raft of well-received EPs and singles as well as a phenomenal debut album in 2017, “Sun Kids.”

Their latest, “Anemoia,” defined as “a longing for a place you have never actually experienced,” is the product of a serious time commitment in Oklahoma’s Blackwatch Studios and continues the band’s sound with further cues from the worlds of yacht rock and funk. If anything, the more open they become to other genres, the more aligned they become with their self-description as a “retro futurist rock band.”

The concept of anemoia — which Ingalls discovered in John Koenig’s “Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” — resonated with the band’s love for language that whittles down complex subjects into a single word or simple phrase. “It’s like poetry in the simplest form,” they said. “Or really fun vocabulary homework. The English language doesn’t have a lot of that so you tend to look elsewhere.”

“Anemoia” also gains focus from b how the media glamorize bygone in the cultish subtext of the 2013 d playfully recalled purchasing seco confronted by their dad: “he said t wore those marble print shirts, right?

I’d scoff and say ‘well it’s cool so I’ that now, with the passing of time, outlandish fashions of early aughts V

“For this record, I really wanted to music in the old-school way, preten band for this cult, then go in and ad with reckless abandon,” they said, n to sound like a ’70s outfit with mode

One idea they’re tinkering with invo from a fruitful 2020, 12-day writing a Ranch in Texas, running them throug order to remix the song before com that — essentially flipping the band’ it could be fun but I wouldn’t know be,” Ingalls joked.

Beyond the sonic, Spaceface go abo shows never succumb to anemoia.

Quinlan’s been tinkering with over th of props, Spaceface are invested in After all, as fans first, they can appre for the buck.

Spaceface play Bumblefest Saturda bumblefest.com

band members’ keen awareness of eras, and from their deep interest documentary, “The Institute.” Ingalls ond-hand ’70s clothes and being to me, ‘you know nobody actually t? That was just in advertising,’ and ’m gonna wear it.’” Only to realize younger people are emulating the Vodafone ads.

lean into that by trying to arrange nding that we were the backdrop dd big subby bass and crazy synths noting the band’s underlining desire ern tools.

olves taking specific song elements and recording session held at Sonic gh DJ decks and Serato software in mpletion, and then writing on top of ’s writing process on its head. “I think w what genre that would turn out to

ove and beyond so that fans at their With an improvised lighting rig that he years and a rotating menagerie the immersive experience of music. eciate giving theirs that extra bang

ay, Sept. 3 DNTN West Palm Beach.

FIRE RECORDS

IMMATERIAL POSSESSION

by David Rolland

From the top of their 2020 self-titled debut, Immaterial Possession sound very much like their name — eerie, haunting, with something supernatural you can’t quite grasp. There’s an air of Joy Division post punk and a dash of proto-goth Siouxsie and the Banshees, but more laid back considering the lo-fi presentation and the playfulness with instruments and arranging.

Singer and guitarist Madeline Polites assures PureHoney that the Athens, Georgia group did not spring from a crossroads or a coven. “Cooper Holmes and I found we both were ripe in the desire to start something fresh and so we made a pinkie promise at an Atlanta dive bar that we’d start a band,” says Polites.

“We plucked John Spiegel from the top of the drummer tree of Athens and a few renditions of keyboardists later, we found Kiran Fernandes who made everything really gel, and brought with him clarinets, congas, saxophone, flutes, and other lively instruments.”

The four piece is currently recording a followup album and has been performing their first out of Georgia dates since the pandemic. Asked how they generally prepare for shows such as their upcoming visit to Respectable Street in West Palm Beach, Polites hints at the possibility of Bumblefest mischief: “We usually sketch out a few improvisational elements to give the show a face with a theatrical balance. We surf that alien wave, slap each other in the face and threaten violence if we don’t obey the laws of the set which have yet to be written. Then I smile at the sound person.. all the while casting spells upon them to ensure the sparkliest sound. I rush again to the bathroom for the second time. I uncomfortably remove my casual attire in the darkest landscapes of piss room and replace my skin with black and white morphing faces.. fluff my hair and waltz out as if it never happened.” And that is the recipe for an Immaterial Possession.

Immaterial Possession play Bumblefest Friday, Sept. 2 DNTN West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com

BAD LOVE DESIGN

by Veronica Inberg

Sampling the work of Vernon James “Bad Love” is like free-falling into a Wonderland hosted by Vincent Price. There are burlesque Siamese twins sporting ’20s bobs, the Frankenstein bride as a highstrung comics diva, Bettie Page rocker chicks and scream queens like we haven’t seen since Poison Ivy of The Cramps.

Yet James, through his homegrown graphics shop Bad Love Design, also pushes beyond the horrorbabe branding. Prints declaring “Tax the Churches,” ‘’Keep Seeking Knowledge” and “Columbus Didn’t Discover Shit” embed provocative social messaging into a midcentury style for artwork that anyone (even his girlfriend) would own.

Vernon “Bad Love” is this month’s PureHoney spotlight artist and the the poster artist for the upcoming edition of Bumblefest, PureHoney’s annual live music party in downtown West Palm Beach. It’s a match made in retro-indie Shangri-la: James’ artwork is an amalgam of childhood cartoons, cult film references and go-go visuals that more than lives up to its tagline: “bizarre, playful, loud comic, erotic, and macabre.”

In an interview, the native of Detroit says that his interest in art started in childhood and he set his sights on becoming an animator. But a career in cels would have to wait: In his teens, James instead jumped headlong into music, teaching himself guitar and upright bass. His bands played VERNON JAMES everything from folk to Halloween songs, and when James took up art and design (which he also taught himself) he brought his musical sensibility with him.

Asked what he’s inspired by — fire up your search engines — James drops references deeper than Elvira’s neckline: ’40s jazz album covers designed by Jim Flora; the midcentury cartoon canon of Hanna-Barbera, the output of the UPA animation studio that created Mr. Magoo. All these, and many more, provide a wealth of line and color influences that James incorporates into his very stylized, often duotone pieces. Add his fondness for horror hosts (Vampira, John Zacherle) and William Castle movies (“The Tingler,” “House on Haunted Hill”), and James is producing somehow familiar but one-of-a-kind work.

Not surprisingly, James loves Halloween, and has made multiple pieces to prove it. He sees it as an opportunity for people to celebrate being themselves: “There is no pressure whatsoever.

It’s all about whatever you’re into and you can be anything you want with no judgment.” Although he used to dress up as a member of Kiss — and once as Tim Curry’s cross-dressing mad scientist, Frank-N-Furter, from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” — he doesn’t go all out for the occasion anymore. There’s no need, as he points out, when you “dress weird everyday.” A self-identified “classy goth,” James gives a nod to David Lynch for his fashion sense and Eraserhead for his electric hairstyle.

Another noteworthy aspect of James’ work is its medium ambiguity — a design choice that was carefully cultivated through experimentation and the “trial-by-fire” nature of being self-taught. From pen and ink designs scanned into a computer, James segued to drawing in Photoshop. When he was able to afford a tablet and iPad, he found he had the tools to be more deliberate and precise in achieving the finished but still very hand-made, individualized look he wanted for many of his pieces.

James is preparing to move to Nashville to restart his musical career — a project he says is made possible by his livelihood as an artist. He feels like he’s making headway with the music, but is not ready to put it out there just yet. Among the works that might, or might not, find their way into wider world is an “industrial musical” set 60 years into the future that James says he’s already written. In the meantime, he’s keeping his Instagram followers delighted and paying customers happy with a variety of prints, tarot decks, stickers, lapel pens and more in a style that returns our visual past to us as an offbeat pleasure.

@badlovedesign | www.badlovedesign.com

ACID DAD

by David Rolland

Few genres in music history are as perfectly named as dad rock.

Right away the dad-rock descriptor gives you a distinct visual of an aging paterfamilias reminiscing about when guitar-based rock with killer lyrics ruled the roost. Modern bands like Wilco and The War on Drugs got hit with that tag, but the kings of dad rock are probably Bruce Springsteen and Van Halen.

It is unclear whether Acid Dad took their name from this lineage, but their wonderful music certainly fits comfortably into that niche except, you know, on acid. The New York based trio of singers/guitarists Vaughn Hunt and Sean Fahey and drummer Trevor Mustoe (formerly of Miami band Plastic Pinks) work in the conventional framework of lyric-driven rock, but there is a sharper edge. The guitars are a little janglier, the effects a tinge more psychedelic, and the words a tad harsher than most fathers might feel comfortable playing without first making sure the garage doors are soundproof.

Acid Dad’s fun recent full-length, 2021’s “Take It From The Dead,” gets you in the dad rock mood from the get-go. The opening track “Searchin’” lulls you into thinking this is perfect driving music to blast with the top down and let everyone know you’ve still got it. But then comes that second verse that definitely won’t be approved by the local PTA and Kiwanis Club: “In the valley of fake tits/There’s stilettos rubbing some dick/ All the profit goes to some/ Dumb motherfuckin’ racist scum.”

That dad rock/acid rock dichotomy continues throughout the album, with song titles you can imagine your Dad approving of like “BBQ,” “RC Driver” and “Smile You’re on Camera” coupled with content that might make them blush. Then to make matters more confusing Acid Dad songs always include catchy guitar hooks reminiscent of The Byrds and other dad-approved rock. It will have most Dads bobbing their heads as they empty the content of several cans of PBR before they realize they’ve been tricked into endorsing lyrics like, “Wasted teens on their knees/Purely begging for some lean.”

Acid Dad play Thursday, Aug. 11 at Gramps in Wynwood. https://linktr.ee/aciddad666