PUREHONEY 64

Drew Weidemann

Look Alive Fest: Psychic TV! Miami Art Week is about to get a whole lot louder: Look Alive Fest is back for its fifth year of adventurous experimental music at Churchill’s Pub. Featuring the best lineup of the year, every year, Look Alive is unparalleled in sonic and conceptual exploration.

Here’s what you get in 2016:

With the recent successful Kickstarter campaign for the documentary film, “A Message from the Temple,” the timing to see Psychic TV could not be more perfect. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, a founding member of Thee Temple of Psychick Youth and Psychic TV, is bona fide stalwart of ideological PSYCHIC TV progression and critical thought. H/er contributions to subculture’s vernacular go as far back as the foundation of COUM Transmissions and as recent as the “Try to Altar Everything” exhibition at New York City’s Rubin Museum. If Psychic TV is new to you, expect cosmic change—Thee Temple is always open to new recruits.

Destruction Unit is quite possibly the greatest active live band in America, and with the recent tragedy of November 8th, you can expect these cats to set fire to your American flag and snort the ashes. I’ve seen them in basements in Northwest Indiana, on massive Los Angeles stages, in New York backroom bars, and each time they kick open the door to my mind anew. Blistering volume, tight composition, and full-on psychedelic mania make Destruction Unit a must-see.

Every Horoscope performance is different, and with Rene’s complex relationship with his home town, you could put money on this one being powerful as all get out. Horoscope drips heaviness: Cuban history, sex, drugs, self-destruction, and ultimately catharsis. Part performance art, part noise, all whatever the fuck he wants, Horoscope is taking your preconceived notion of “Miami music,” whatever that means, and shining light into its dark corners.

Rounding out the bill are Philadelphia’s noise rock collective Temple of Bon Matin, New York’s Collapsing Scenery, Richard Vergez’s Drowning the Virgin Silence, Miami’s psychedelic noise rock contingent Other Body, and other “special guests.”

Judging from Look Alive founder and host Andrew McLees’ uncanny ability to pull heavy names from the international underground, “special guest” could mean anyone. I mean, the guy booked legendary psychedelic electronic band Silver Apples last year—how much heavier can a hitter get?

Look Alive Fest 2016 featuring Psychic TV and Destruction Unit at 8pm on Friday, December 2 at Churchill’s Pub with Horoscope, Temple of Bon Matin, Collapsing Scenery, Drowning the Virgin Silence, and Other Body. Advance tickets available at lookalivefest.com. ~ Jordan Reyes

Silversun Pickups play RipTide Claire Marie Vogel

Anxious times bend art in their direction. And there was anxiety to burn out in the world while the Los Angeles quartet Silversun Pickups were holed up making their fourth album.

“Better Nature” arrived in September of 2015 — another year of proliferating bulletins on climate change, technological disruption and global conflict — and it found these indie guitar-pop weavers in a state of real urgency. With its tense, melancholy disquiet, “Better Nature” registered the existing fears and practically foretold 2016 — a year so unloved that HBO’s John Oliver has already declared it “the fucking worst.”

But it has had “Better Nature” making the rounds, a welcome reminder of the consolations of music. It is quite possibly Silversun Pickups’ best work to date — a proposition that singer-guitarist Brian Aubert did not reject in an interview with PureHoney, even if saying so felt odd for him.

SILVERSUN PICKUPS

“Actually, we do feel like it’s our best record,” Aubert wrote in an exchange of emails. “It’s an interesting feeling to have. We talk down everything we do. We want the records to speak on their own. Hyping yourself seems a bit ludicrous to us.”

Asked if the times had demanded a different kind of record than before, he replied, “Absolutely. This made us want to be immediate,” Aubert wrote of the album’s creation. “No past. No future. All present tense. Like meditation... “ Aubert, bassist-vocalist Nikki Monninger, drummer Christopher Guanlao and keyboardist Joe Lester were in a different place with 2012’s “Neck of the Woods,” an album with “a very nostalgic point of view,” recalled Aubert.

“Woods” may have been a wistful sendoff to their earlier selves. Marriages and parenthood beckoned for some of the four, Aubert included, and a band begun in 2000 by friends knocking around L.A.’s Silver Lake arts scene had become a livelihood.

“Artistically, it makes you more sensitive to the world,” Aubert wrote of being a parent. “More connected and more concerned about profound issues. We leave them [our children] to the world … “

There is plenty of the meditative power and the immersive, fuzzbathed sensory joy that first drew listeners to Silversun Pickups and landed, for example, 2006’s “Lazy Eye” on the soundtracks of both the “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero” video games. But the unease persists throughout “Better Nature,” from the depiction of app-addicted kids of “Connection” to a breakup painted in shades of natural disaster on the penultimate track, “Ragamuffin”:

Rebekkah Drake

Uncertainty about that world animates “Better Nature.” The title track, “Cradle (Better Nature),” opens the album with a tidal surge of sound, a snapping drumline underneath, and a desolate pinging of four notes as its motif. An ominous lyric — “Hide your cradle/And a headstone/In the watermark/When the sea comes” — gives way to a receding coda, like a music box winding down.

SILVERSUN PICKUPS

“Then, as the years flew by/And all the water died/There, I saw you dancing alone/On everything we own.”

Each new Silversun Pickups album is “usually a bit of a rebellion from a previous album,” according to Aubert, and “Better Nature” fits that pattern.

“Not in a way that’s calculated,” he added. “It’s organic because you’ve spent a long time with the previous record and you’ve gone all in on those feelings and concepts. Once you start again, all that is gone and you’re in a new world.”

Aubert considers it essential to embrace that newness every time around if a band wants to stay as motivated as it did on day one. “So we always feel like we’re reaching for something that’s just out of our grasp,” he wrote. “I think that’s why we feel new. Because what we want is always new.”

As for the discontents of 2016, he wrote, “However you feel right now, just remember, be the best person you can possibly be. For your friends, for your families, for your loved ones, for strangers, for the world and for yourself. You make the world you live in.”

Silversun Pickups perform the Riptide Music Festival, Saturday, Dec. 3 on Fort Lauderdale Beach, A1A and Harbor Drive. Gates open at 10am. Festival tickets start at $49. Information at 877-766-8162, riptidefest.com. ~ Sean Piccoli

Room Thirteen, The Dewars Historia Photography

This winter... two bands, a documentary film crew, one bus, and a frenchman will take to the road on a breathtaking journey across the Floridian frontier. Join The Dewars, Room Thirteen (F.K.A. Danny), their uproarious entourage, and many stellar supporting bands as they parade through Gainesville, St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Orlando, West Palm Beach, and Miami!

The Tour de Florida is not your average annual check up from a couple of road worn bands on their musical campaign trails. Nor is it a hallmark family getaway trip to disney for the holidays this year. Uniquely its a hybrid fusion of both worlds crunched into one. No one is entirely certain what will come of this state wide escapade but we can be sure to expect an assortment of amateur gambling, hot air ballooning, air boat shenanigans, disney amusements and of course, live shows. This uncharted journey will be captured by a hand selected crew of film and art students out of the University of Florida, set forth to study the behavior of these two bands interacting on one high stage of hardship and glory.

ROOM THIRTEEN

Room Thirteen (New Orleans), formerly known as Danny, is setting out for a Florida tour in support of their forth-coming LP “Roccopulco.� A favorite of the locals, Roccopulco is very potent. A delightful mix of unknown origin, this selection includes unexpected sax solos and a harvest of exotic flavorings.

Sure, it looks innocent enough but this album packs enough slide guitars and passion fruit juices to stop a crocodile. Inside you will find a mixture of lethargic rhythms, fruit nectar and good old-fashioned organ sounds, this concoction is perfect for a before dinner listen or maybe after a swim.

The shows will stretch from Gainesville to Miami from December 9-17. They will be joined by the Dewars, a Floridian-Australian trans-genre band fronted by twins Anthony and Zachary Dewar. As young songsters they journeyed across wide frontiers capturing the hearts of many by way of song. After years of writing and recording in isolation they have returned to the road with a full band, two nearly finished associate degrees, and a matured sound and fury.

Catch Tour de Florida ft. The Dewars and Room Thirteen in South Florida 12/15 at Flaunt / Respectable Street, 12/16 at Gramps w. Ricardo Guerrero and 12/17 at The Bridge w. Cloud Solo.

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1

CHURCHILLS: Lydia Lunch, Squelchers, pariuh, Period BOMB, PLEASURES, EW, Pocket of Lollipops, The Grumps, Grave Moss, The Water Colors, Treasure Teeth, FAT SUN, SANDRATZ, Jellyfish Brothers, Fatal Jamz, Problem Child, Gland, Snakehole, Poncili Creacion, Moon River Cabaret, Sharlyn Evertsz, NoFace, James Benjamin, Abyss X & Burundanga OLD SCHOOL SQUARE: Silent Disco

KILL YOUR IDOL: Open Mic

KELSEY THEATER: The Word Alive, Volumes, Islanders PROPAGANDA: Karaoke Night TERRA FERMATA: Nikki Hill, The Nouveaux Honkies

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7

DADA: Whiskey Wasps KILL YOUR IDOL: K Pasa USA KREEPY TIKI: Sammy Kay, Matty Carlock, Eric Daino

DADA: SloFunkPump

RESPECTABLE STREET: Killmama

PROPAGANDA: Ladies Night, Lftd Lvls, Space Coast Ghosts KREEPY TIKI: Broward Noise Ordnance- Dot Dot Orchestra, Michael Feathers, Puppets of the Painted Wreckage, Bakers Paradise, Niuvis Martin, Silent Strangers, Phantasman Pesh Cab

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2

FILLMORE MB: Jose Luis Rodriquez

DADA: Xotic Yeyo KILL YOUR IDOL: Fatal Jamz, The Zoo Peculiar

RESPECTABLE STREET: Cheap Plastic, Oddly Strange, Toridian CHURCHILL’S PUB: Psychic TV, Destruction Unit, Horoscope, Temple of Bon Matin, Collapsing Scenery, Drowning the Virgin Silence, Other Body

CULTURE ROOM: Perpetual Groove FUNKY BISCUIT: Mark Hummel’s Golden State Lone Star Revue Featuring Anson Funderburgh & Little Charlie Baty TERRA FERMATA: Sierra Band, Abby Owens CWS: Bluejay, Mike Mineo KREEPY TIKI: Social X! DJ Lady Anime, DJ Heathen & Pandora Black

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3

FORT LAUDERDALE BEACH: Riptide Music Festival ft. Silversun Pickups, AWOLNATION, SAINT MOTEL, Pepper, Glass Animals, Robert DeLong, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, The Struts, Good Charlotte, Miike Snow, Dirty Heads FILLMORE MB: Fito Paez DADA: Sophie Pomeranz Band SUBCULTURE DELRAY: Whiskey Wasps

KELSEY THEATER: Full Throttle Wrestling

BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Rogue Theory PROPAGANDA: Web Three, Hood Hippies CULTURE ROOM: Perpetual Groove TERRA FERMATA: String Assassins, Ghost of Paul Revere, Victoria Leigh CWS: Juke Joint Swingers KREEPY TIKI: Sons of Ragnar, Withering Earth, Faethom, Silenmara, Maedusa

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4

FORT LAUDERDALE BEACH: Riptide Music Festival ft. The B-52’s, Howard Jones, Earth, Wind & Fire, Debbie Deb, The Fixx, Lime, A Flock of Seagulls, EXPOSÉÉ FILLMORE MB: Octonauts BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Eric Ryan TERRA FERMATA: The Low Keys, Jedi Magic Carousel KREEPY TIKI: Dark Premises, Luciferian Insectus, Wicked Playground, Undoing Each Other, Everred

MONDAY, DECEMBER 5 DADA: Open Mic

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6

DADA: Spoken Word Open Mic

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 DADA: Craft Bazaar

RESPECTABLE STREET: Wake Up

BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Open Mic Night PROPAGANDA: Ladies Night, Lftd Lvls, Space Coast Ghosts FUNKY BISCUIT: Here Come The Mummies FUNKY BUDDHA: Zoogma, Beat Thief, Inc. TERRA FERMATA: Bayou Saints, Devon Allman, Abby Owens CWS: Juke

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9

BAYFRONT PARK, MIAMI: Buskerfest Miami FILLMORE MB: Ms. Lauryn Hill KREEPY TIKI: A New Way To Live Forever DADA: Big Chief KILL YOUR IDOL: Breaks Yo!

KELSEY THEATER: Dream Steeple Surf Movie & William Kimball Band

BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Zack Jones SWAMPGRASS WILLYS: SADA, The Prescription, Apollo Electric TERRA FERMATA: Malik, Bayou Saints, Steppin Stones, Abby Owens CWS: JL Fulks Duo, Similar Prisoners KREEPY TIKI: An Evening with Father Figure$ (Jabrjaw + Bleubird), Young Broot McCoy, OG Sign One

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20

DADA: Aceskully SUBCULTURE COFFEE DELRAY: TreeSwifts KILL YOUR IDOL: Keep It Deep

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21

OLD SCHOOL SQUARE CREST THEATER: The Heavy Pets Holiday Ball: The Heavy Pets, Mike Mineo, Guavatron RESPECTABLE STREET: Street Art Revolution: Art, Bands, Food Trucks, DJs & More!

DADA: Comedy Open Mic KILL YOUR IDOL: Open Mic TERRA FERMATA: Michelle Lambert Duo, Nouveaux Honkies KREEPY TIKI: Locals Cocktail Night

FILLMORE MB: Matisyahu

BREWHOUSE GALLERY: String Assassins PROPAGANDA: Whole Wheat Bread, No Name Ska Band, Whiskey Walls

DADA: Charley Lawson KILL YOUR IDOL: Inlight BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Think & Drink Trivia CWS: Soundproof

TERRA FERMATA: JL Fulks, Jarekus Singleton, Denny Artache CWS: SunHands KREEPY TIKI: The Deadly Blank, W.D. Miller and The Revolvers, Falseta, The Super Fuzz

BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Open Mic Night TERRA FERMATA: Joel DaSilva & the Midnight Howl CWS: Chloe Dolandis Duo KREEPY TIKI: Hail Krampus- Sorus, Iron Buddha + More

CHURCHILLS PUB: 5th Annual Dan Hosker Music Continuum THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22 ShowCharlie Pickett, Humbert, Mr. Entertainment and the Pookiesmackers, The Bikes, Basketcase, Rat Bastard, Amy T DADA: Future Prezidents RESPECTABLE STREET: Rivers + Civilian (early) Baxter, Jonathan Oehler, DJ Skidmark, The Rat Opera WYNWOOD BREWERY: Grey 8’s, Viniloversus, Magic City Hippies RESPECTABLE STREET: Grey and Orange (later Flaunt)

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11

TERRA FERMATA: Duffy Bishop

MONDAY, DECEMBER 12 DADA: Open Mic

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13

DADA: Comedy Open Mic KILL YOUR IDOL: Open Mic PROPAGANDA: Karaoke Night TERRA FERMATA: JD Cook & Micky Lynn, Nouveaux Honkies KREEPY TIKI: Locals Cocktail Night

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14

DADA: Erik O’ Neil KILL YOUR IDOL: Flower City Conspiracy KREEPY TIKI: NOLA Jazz Night w/ Bad Apples Brass Band

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15

RESPECTABLE STREET: The Dewars, Room Thirteen

KILL YOUR IDOL: Karaoke & Kraken BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Open Mic Night PROPAGANDA: Ladies Night, Lftd Lvls, Space Coast Ghosts TERRA FERMATA: Damon Fowler, Deal James CWS: Future Prezidents KREEPY TIKI: Off Orbit & Friends

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23

RESPECTABLE STREET: Good Night Moon, Lavola

BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Ella Herrera TERRA FERMATA: JP Soars & the Red Hots, Abby Owens CWS: Melinda Elana KREEPY TIKI: Bomber- Motörhead Tribute

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24

KILL YOUR IDOL: The Wire – Hip Hop TERRA FERMATA: Victoria Leigh

MONDAY, DECEMBER 26 DADA: Open Mic

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27

DADA: Comedy Open Mic KILL YOUR IDOL: Open Mic TERRA FERMATA: Nouveaux Honkies, Butch Trucks & the Freight Train Band KREEPY TIKI: Locals Cocktail Night

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 28

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16

DADA: Synyext KILL YOUR IDOL: The Hoy Polloy BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Think & Drink Trivia TERRA FERMATA: Dr. Bacon CWS: Crazy Fingers KREEPY TIKI: Clem McGillicutty, 40rty, Unite Rise

DADA: Public Sounds

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 29

FILLMORE MB: New Riders Of The Purple Sage RESPECTABLE STREET: Emo Night Brooklyn BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Acoustic Soul

KELSEY THEATER: Bar Church: Beers & Carols

FUNKY BUDDHA: Bath Salt Zombies, Zoo Peculiar TERRA FERMATA: Crazy Fingers, Abby Owens CWS: Bobby Lee Rodgers, Victoria Cardona KREEPY TIKI: Goatwhore

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17 FILLMORE MB: Guaco

DADA: The State Of SUBCULTURE COFFEE DELRAY: Hillside Spirit Revival BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Whiskey Wasps TERRA FERMATA: Strangetown, Andrew Duhon, The Low Keys CWS: Solemark KREEPY TIKI: Die Trying!, Menudo Death Squad, Out Of Sorts, Lizard Gutz

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18

RESPECTABLE STREET: Reverend Horton Heat, Jello Biafra, Legendary Shack Shakers DADA: Flower City Conspiracy KILL YOUR IDOL: Karaoke and Kraken BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Artists Opening, Open Mic Night TERRA FERMATA: Zach Deputy, Stephen D. Hunt CWS: Skinny Jimmy KREEPY TIKI: Enemy of The State, Nekromaniak, Nutcheck, Apocalyptic Assault

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30

FILLMORE MB: Moscow ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker DADA: Shameless Burlesque

RESPECTABLE STREET: Limitless Lit-Mas Party

TERRA FERMATA: Nouveaux Honkies, Ben Prestage, Abby Owens CWS: Franscene KREEPY TIKI: AnyOtherColor, Water Colors & Friends

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31

DADA: SpiderCherry BREWHOUSE GALLERY: Nip & Tuck ACCOMPLICE CIDERWORKS: Monthly Art & Artisans Showcase TERRA FERMATA: West King String Band, Strung Like a Horse CWS: KIDS, Kent Lawler

MONDAY, DECEMBER 19 DADA: Open Mic

Jasmine Hirst

Lydia Lunch, Crass Lips

LYDIA LUNCH

spearheading multi-tasker they’ll need.

Punk is not dead. Noise is not dead. If you are listening to it and talking about it, how could you convince yourself it’s dead?” questions CamilaMaria Alvarez of avant-punkers Period BOMB with the nervy jolt of youth her conjoined first name hints at.

“Who cares if barely anyone you know knows about your favorite artists? All the more reason to start your own project and start booking your own shows.” Much more has started with a lot less in the past and for the next generation of South Florida punks, weirdos, artists, and fringe dwellers, she’s the kind of

And it would only be fitting to her style to secure the first mainland South Florida gig by famed and seminal artist Lydia Lunch. Lunch, an icon of New York’s No Wave scene and an influence on the punk, avant-garde, noise, and industrial scenes that followed, has forged an entirely independent career in music, writing, art, and film and was last seen this far south in the early 90s at the defunct Washington Square. Never fearing cult status making her unapproachable, Alvarez went for the kill in the simplest and most direct fashion. “I just reached out to her through her website and wrote her a kind of cryptic message about a cool show opportunity for Basel and told her to call my hotline 877-577-BOOM.” The perfect antidote for what Art Basel has turned into, not that it ever guised itself as anything other than a profitable mining of the art world, Lunch brings the requisite dose of angst and creativity locals will appreciate in a season that largely ignores them. The show, though headlined by Lunch, is as much a testament to Alvarez’s savvy as is her determination to give an outlet to the aforementioned punks, weirdos, artists, and fringe dwellers. Along with fellow bandmate, Gladys Nobriga, she started Crass Lips Records after a big bite from the DIY bug got them while on tour.

Citing her eclectic taste and disavowing the outmoded ideology of genre homogeneity gave the label the necessary fuel. Often vocal of seeing all of her friends at different shows but never the same one is the umbrella from which they operate and it is reminiscent of the early 90’s local scene with likeminded labels like Starcrunch and Space Cadette Records who fledged in the technological disadvantage of their eras. With eight releases under their belts, the label has upcoming tapes from Illuminati Sex Party, Problem Child, Debbie Dahmer and Miracle Swirl among others. Their Monthly Mystery Tape Club on a $5 monthly membership is another ambitious project they’re undertaking.

For now, Lunch’s first appearance on a Miami stage is the perfect and correct way of cementing this label and the efforts of its founders. “I have always been influenced by her but only recently realized how much and how deeply she is rooted in everything and everyone I love,” explains Alvarez. “Now it’s turned into this beautiful gathering of just about everyone I’d wish to have in my crazy femme No-Wave army in this crazy, all-too-real battle against this greed and machismo infestation destroying our country.”

Split:Lip Service feat. Brutal Measures (Lydia Lunch and Weasel Walter) at 8pm on Thursday, December 1 at Churchill’s Pub. w. Squelchers(.com), pariuh, Period BOMB, PLEASURES, EW, Pocket of Lollipops, The Grumps, Grave Moss, The Water Colors, Treasure Teeth, FAT SUN, SANDRATZ, Jellyfish Brothers,Fatal Jamz, Problem Child,Gland, Snakehole, Poncili Creacion, Moon River Cabaret, Sharlyn Evertsz, NoFace, James Benjamin, Abyss X, Burundanga, Sponge and TRESPASS. ~ Abel Folgar

A SUPER SOCIAL

BATTLE OF THE DJs!

The First Thursday Each Month

9:00pm – 12:00am

Tickets: OldSchoolSquare.org 51 N Swinton Ave | Delray Beach, FL | 561 243 7922 | OldSchoolSquare.org

Jello Biafra, Reverend Horton Heat Fear can bring out the worst in people, but it can also be a catalyst for change. In the 1980’s Ronald Reagan marginalized the masses and helped, in a twisted way, make some of the best hardcore punk rock ever. While bands like Black Flag and Circle Jerks were at times political, they generally dealt with the isolation of being different in a time when being preppy and similar was, like, the coolest. The Dead Kennedy’s dealt in a different flavor of anger. The bands commander in chief: Jello Biafra was beyond literate, he was dangerously well-informed, and pointedly pissed off. Blind rage can be, terrifying; but, focused, informed, indignation is a revolution JELLO BIAFRA that scares the establishment. Jello ran for Mayor of San Francisco in 1979 and finished fourth in a race of 10 people.

His antics in the campaign became more of the focus than his politics, which despite being pretty radical were actually somewhat apropos for the time.

Of his candidacy, Jello had this to say, “For those of them who have seen my candidacy as a publicity stunt or joke, they should keep in mind that it is no more of a joke, and no less of a joke, than anyone else they care to name.”

The Dead Kennedy’s were a focused target of the P.M.R.C, headed by Tipper Gore for the H.R. Geiger cover of their album: Frankenchrist. This led to the police raiding Biafra’s record label/home, Alternative Tentacles, in search of the “lewd” art work that was to accompany the record. The monetary and emotional strain is what eventually led to the Dead Kennedy’s calling it a day.

Jello Biafra stayed relevant, he began doing guest spots on other people’s records, spoken word tours (the medium du jour for big brained punk icons), and made records with LARD, the Melvins, Mojo Nixon and D.O.A, before forming Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo Bay School of Medicine.

This newest incarnation; JB and the GBSoM is the first fully new band since the demise of the Dead Kennedy’s. It sees Jello at his, Jelloest; shifting attention to where it need to be, on the problems that face us as Americans and humans. He hasn’t lost the edge that brought him to prominence in a tight scene REVEREND HORTON HEAT of various upstarts and troublemakers. These days we could use a little hint of insurrection; we find Mr. Biafra at a time that appears to be a parallel to the, “Morning in America”, Conservative dance party that was the 1980’s Reagan era. What with Donald Trump about to take the oath of office, there are a lot of uncertainties for a lot of scared folks that Jello Biafra might be able to put into perspective; or at least we get to hear what he thinks of the whole affair. That in itself is probably worth the price of admission.

Joining Jello and the Guantanamo Bay School of Medicine on this excursion into surreality is the ever popular Reverend Horton Heat, who are no stranger to these parts. The Rev and company usually roll into some part of South Florida every year or so in order to remind us how to let go of all the ridiculousness of the modern world and just have a good time. The Reverend Horton Heat, blends rock-a-billy cool, with punk swagger and rock n’ roll attitude. They came to prominence on the Sub Pop label in the mid-1990’s with a sound that is described by some as, “Country, punkabilly.” Whatever you want to call it, it’s a rocking good time with a rolling beat.

It seems only appropriate that Jello Biafra, a punk rock, rapscallion with a penchant for politics would decide to go on tour with the Reverned Horton Heat; a holy man with a burning heart for the music that made America the mecca of artistic freedom throughout the 20th century. Without jazz, blues, jump big band, swing or rock and roll, there would be no punk, heavy metal, thrash or any of the sub genres that dominate current mall culture. The antithesis, by the way, of what Dead Kennedy’s was all about when they were sneering at cops and doing their best to make you thought while you slammed.

LEGENDARY SHACK SHAKERS

The world sure seems to be a mess these days, maybe what we all really need is a little dose of perspective and a healthy dose of carefree rock and roll fun. Just for a little while maybe we can find a way to all let lose and put differences aside for a few hours; don’t worry, everything will be shitty again as soon as you leave Respectable’s. You can always count on reality to ruin a perfectly good day.

The Reverend Horton Heat with Jello Biafra and the Legendary Shack Shakers play at Respectable’s Street in West Palm Beach, Thursday, December 29. 18+, doors 8pm, tickets $30 advance, $35 at door. ~ Tim Moffatt

Heavy Pets Holiday Ball Brotherly Love Productions

The Fort Lauderdale grooverock chameleons known as the Heavy Pets will been trotting out different guises in 2016.

They’ve spent the past year touring relentlessly with funky righteousness, marking their 10th anniversary by adding a handful of Beatles tribute concerts over the summer (their “Day Tripper” and “A Hard Day’s Night” pulsates with jangly drum beats). The jam-band kings are also, at the moment, pivoting back to the THE HEAVY PETS studio for their first full-length album since 2011’s “Swim Out Past the Sun.” But first, guitarists Jeff Lloyd and Mike Garulli, keyboardist Jim Wuest, bassist Justin Carney and drummer Jamie Newitt will carry that weight into the inaugural Heavy Pets Holiday Ball, a night of virtuosic guitar solos to benefit Toys for Tots, with a little help from Palm Beach subtropical pop-rocker Mike Mineo and electronica jam-band Guavatron.

That concert at Old School Square continues a season of joyful noise and stimulating talks at the Delray Beach complex, distinguished by the March 3 performance “Rhythmic Circus: Feet Don’t Fail Me Now!” the high-energy Minneapolis group of tap dancers and musicians who laying down funk, blues and salsa grooves. Before that, the Tony-winning “Avenue Q” (Dec. 16-18), the puppet-powered coming-of-age musical, will bring nights of raunchy political incorrectness to the Crest Theatre. Meanwhile, Leslie Odom, Jr. (March 13-14), who played Aaron Burr in the hit Broadway hip-hop musical “Hamilton,” leads the season’s bill of speakers. Old School has also tripled its programming by adding more concerts to its Pavilion Amphitheater, including performances by Occidental Gypsy (Jan. 13), the New England quintet who blends uptempo gypsy swing and jazz, and Shotgun Wedding (March 5), the Brooklyn alt-country quintet whose members have played for Shania Twain and Billy Joel’s touring bands.

“We’re really trying to stop being the best-kept secret around here and finally put Old School Square on the map,” Melissa Carter, Old School Square’s marketing director, says. “We’re expanding with so many offerings, adding a bunch of contemporary art, and it’s important for us to give the community world-class entertainment.”

The Heavy Pets Holiday Ball with Heavy Pets, Mike Mineo and Guavatron runs Dec. 10 at the Crest Theatre at Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., in Delray Beach. Doors 8 pm. $20-$25. OldSchoolSquare.org and TheHeavyPets.com. ~ Phillip Valys

Lindsey Grace Whiddon

Civilian Ryan Alexander feels like he spent two-and-a-half weeks in a sleepless blitz while writing Civilian’s sophomore album “You Wouldn’t Believe What Privilege Costs,” a collection of sociopolitical songs tinged with the religious burdens of his youth.

A lapsed Christian before he began fronting his Nashville quartet of indie-rock heroes, the Fort Lauderdale native assembled all 12 songs in one cathartic writing spree in early 2015: attending Hialeah’s Miami CIVILIAN Dade Christian Academy, losing his religion, blending in politics. “There’s a reason to believe we’re a gun in the hand of a con man/We’re a brick in the wall around the problem,” Alexander sings with sneering resentment in the sharp and driving single “Reasons,” a lyric which targets the role of God in his childhood. “When I walked away from my religion, I felt like I committed social suicide,” Alexander, 30, recalls by phone. “I really wanted to write a critique of how I was brought up – not how my parents treated me – but the culture, from a post-evangelical perspective. It definitely felt like I needed to mourn something, but I didn’t know what.”

Of course, the band’s had nothing to mourn since decamping from Fort Lauderdale to Nashville two years ago. Civilian, which signed with Tooth and Nail Records in August, is now composed of Alexander and Fort Lauderdale native Dan Diaz on bass, drummer Jonathan Thomas (ex Tampa) and guitarist John Fiorentino. “You Wouldn’t Believe What Privilege Costs” continues Alexander’s vision for Civilian, with dark, atmospheric rock that’s engraved with the heart-on-sleeve values of early-aughts emocore inspired by Death Cab for Cutie and the punk salvos of Jimmy Eat World.

But Alexander’s full-length album, the first since 2012’s “Should This Noose Unloosen,” wallows less in self-pity than in hopefulness. “People will see this album as a coping mechanism, but right now I have to work toward more patience and understanding,” Alexander says. “I can always tell when an artist holds back, and I’ve tried not to for the arc of my career, but now I see with this election that evangelical America, the one I used to belong to, had been biting their tongue for a long time. And I needed to address that.”

Civilian perform with Rivers Thursday, Dec. 22 at Respectable Street, 518 Clematis St., in West Palm Beach. Doors 8:30pm. Cover $10. CivilianSounds.

Squarespace.com. ~ Phillip Valys