Cover: Christopher Sperandio @pinko_joe and pinkojoe.com
“The greater the disparity, the greater the despair.”#GreedKills #FlipThePyramid
Crew, SATURNSARii, Toni Shardai CELONA: Layne Fox, Sergii, Tita Jazz THE GROUND: Flozone, Dennett, Meduso FLOYD: DXNBY, RAJE
MAI KAI’S MOLOKAI BAR: Mala Onda PROPAGANDA : Bitter Blue Jays “The Fold” EP Release Show w/ Zippur, Dopamine, Dr. Mellow ARTS GARAGE: Yarden Shalev – Stay Cool Comedy Magic Show ZEY ZEY: Emmit Fenn, Cult Member LAGNIAPPE: JP Soars
9/1 ARTS GARAGE: Comedy Open Mic KILL YOUR IDOL: Haus of Poodle PROPAGANDA: Karaoke 9/2 LOST WEEKEND MB: DJ Spiff PROPAGANDA: Rooted Rebels, Sweat Equity 9/3 BANYAN LIVE: Cheekface & Catbite ITHINK AMP: Hayley Williams, Magdalena Bay HARD ROCK LIVE: Blues Traveler, Gin Blossoms, Spin Doctors KILL YOUR IDOL: Amazing Colossal KARAOKE PROPAGANDA: Open Mic 9/4 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Hulvey
9/5 MANGO MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL – FREE! Downtown Lake Worth on J Street at Pomona, Propaganda Rudy’s Pub and Bamboo Room ft Cumbiamba, Tony & the Kings, The Glades, Soul Vaccinators, Jeremy’s Way, tiny.blips, Mala Ondo, Brett Staska & the Souvenirs, Mangruve, Rooted Rebels, Mojito Latin Band, Pickers in the Round plus DJs, Arts Vendors, Delicious Food, Drink, Mango Inspired Community Competitions. FREEEEE!!! MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Viva Brazil REVOLUTION LIVE: Citizen, Anxious, Hotline TNT, Rocket BANYAN LIVE: Frawley, Bryan Malpass, The Hot Seat CULTURE ROOM: Nicko McBrains Titanium Tart THE PEACH: 5 Year Anniversary! ft Jaialai, Sleep Casino, Violet Rose, AlexHanna, Valenzuala & DuBois plus LowRider Meetup, GRAFFITI WAREHOUSE: Andrew Music Club ft. DJ HEARTSTRING, Dylan Brady, Marie Qrie, Nia Archives (DJ Set), PETERBLUE, Rumble in the Jungle
9/6 LINCOLN’S BEARD: Mala Onda, The Grey Tones, Orange Blackheart, AirHockey GRAFFITI WAREHOUSE: Andrew Music Club ft. Ariel Zetina, Ben UFO, BERRAKKA, Jonny From Space, Jubilee, Partiboi69, Rude Boy, Zack Fox, 619! MAXI’S LINEUP: Music & Food Fest ft The Flyers, Girlfriend Material, Nouveaux Honkies, Whistling Moon Travellers, Tritone, The Helmsman KILL YOUR IDOL: Late Nite Loops, Matt Brown PROPAGANDA: Lake Worth Photo Walk after party w DJ Hunchback 9/7 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: TAYC KILL YOUR IDOL: SIN Mondays by JUST GIO 9/8 KILL YOUR IDOL: Haus of Poodle POMONA: Matt Brown 9/9 WAR MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: Malcolm Todd CHURCHILL’S PUB: The Suicide Machines LOST WEEKEND MB: DJ Spiff PROPAGANDA: Dirty Bingo 9/10 KILL YOUR IDOL: Amazing Colossal KARAOKE PROPAGANDA: Open Mic 9/11 PROPAGANDA : Rocky’s Birthday Show w/ System Down, Maximum Friction, Mother Rucker KILL YOUR IDOL: Andy Senpai, Mapa, The Streetlights, Bruce Decklan, Mania, Ghovvl, SquidSacks ARTS GARAGE: Rumbletones Roots of Rock n Roll 9/12 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Mari Froes, Alxb PROPAGANDA : Emo Night Florida Tour ’26 w/ Chris Kamrada + Emo Night 772 ARTS GARAGE: Umoja McNeish – Violins reimagined LAS ROSAS: Spike Hellis, Nuxx, Souls of the Departed CHURCHILL’S PUB: Dirty Crumbums ZEY ZEY: Midnight Magic, Sam Collins 9/13 HARD ROCK LIVE: The Strokes, Geordie Greep, Promiseland WAR MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: LUCKI, Sk8star BAMBOO ROOM: JP Soars SAVOR CINEMA: Thrill Capital w. Kate Reda x ShangriLa Collective x TallWalker x Rickolous KILL YOUR IDOL: Late Nite Loops CHURCHILL’S PUB: Militarie Gun, Softcult, Shady Nasty 1-800-LUCKY: Cocodrills 9/15 ZEY ZEY: W.I.T.C.H., The Two Lips ARTS GARAGE: All Arts Open Mic KILL YOUR IDOL: Haus of Poodle 9/16 LOST WEEKEND MB: DJ Spiff PROPAGANDA: Arcane Attic ft Thrift, Vintage, Tarot Readings w/ DJ Nikkiwho LINCOLN’S BEARD: Glitterer FPL SOLAR AMP: Empire of the Sun KASEYA: Rosalia 9/17 CULTURE ROOM: Jute, Mothica, Wilt MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Filmgate Music Video Film Festival LAS ROSAS: EYEHATEGOD, Whores., No/Más PROPAGANDA : Brian’s Birthday Bash -Randall and the Vandals, Blabscam, Turbo Kid
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BSC: The Beginning and the End by Gregory Dirr ILL YOUR IDOL: Amazing Colossal KARAOKE
/18 ULTURE ROOM: Domi & JD Beck WAR MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM: Brad Paisley, harlie Worsham, The Band Loula ROPAGANDA: Dyke Night + 90’s Alt w. Hypercycles ACTORY TOWN: Kaskade ILL YOUR IDOL: Out of the Ashes ASEYA: Gorillaz, Little Sims, Deltron 3030, Kid Koala RTS GARAGE: From Cuba with Love ROPAGANDA: Dyke Night
/19 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: 73rd St Beach Cleanup ANYAN LIVE: The Browning, Deadlands, Extortionist ACTORY TOWN: Snow Strippers HE GROUND: Nitzer Ebb, SINE, Sepehr, Curse Mackey ULTURE ROOM: Vader, Jungle Rot, Flesh Crawl ROPAGANDA: The Return of Remain Calm, he Fux, Goat Rope RTS GARAGE: Hendrik Meurkens
/20 ACTORY TOWN: Turnstile, Mall Grab, Cold World, ollateral, Angelo Tristan LL YOUR IDOL: Late Nite Loops
/21 RTS GARAGE: Spoken Word Open Mic LL YOUR IDOL: SIN Mondays by JUST GIO
/23 OST WEEKEND MB: DJ Spiff ROPAGANDA: Magic, The Gathering — ight of the Propwalkers MARGARITAVILLE: Electric Piquete HINK AMP: Wu-Tang Clan, one Thugs-N-Harmony
/24 ROPAGANDA: Amateur Provocateur, Newbie Burlesque Show LL YOUR IDOL: Amazing Colossal KARAOKE
/25 ANYAN LIVE: All Shall Perish, Carnifex, xtermination Dismemberment, Mauled V: Steve Aoki EVOLUTION LIVE: Overtonight, Tommy Ragen RTS GARAGE: An Evening w Jarred Armstrong
/26 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Santiago Cruz NCOMMON PATH: As We Go Collab Exhibition CHNK x BIG NANCE x ShangriLa Collective ROPAGANDA : Stage Mom’s Up Next Music Fest Road to Revolution” Battle of the Bands ft erotonia, Heneseas, Plan 9, Hypercycles, Achroite, arty of Four, Prickly Dogfish, Vember, Plasma river, Wasted Era ANYAN LIVE: Volumes, Until I Wake, Catsclaw ACTORY TOWN: Fisher RTS GARAGE: LoveCats (Cure), Notorious (Duran Duran)
/27 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Silvana Estrada LL YOUR IDOL: Late Nite Loops ROPAGANDA: Cruise Fest ft Dirty Crumbums, urbo Kid, The Scream Queens, Goat Rope, DJ Sofa ound, Tom Cruise Look-Alike Contest
/29 LL YOUR IDOL: Haus of Poodle
/30 ROPAGANDA: Electro Sonic Workshop LLMORE MB: Of Monsters and Men, Pontheir MS CREAMERY: Sweet Sessions w BIG NANCE x hangriLa Collective OST WEEKEND MB: DJ Spiff
CARLOS MARTA
MARI FROES by amanda e. moore
If the music of Mari Fróes doesn’t completely stop time, it definitely makes you slow down and appreciate life. It’s the sound of someone swimming in sultry sunlight, sunbathing in a tropical oasis, watching shadows from the trees dance across the pool. In an interview with PureHoney, Fróes describes her sound as “warm, honest, timeless.” She makes music with intention — each rhythm, breath and silence purposeful. The Brazilian artist blends musica popular brasileira, bossa nova, samba and jazz into something inviting, expansive, cultured and well-traveled.
Nature lives inside Fróes’ music. “The sea, the moon, the sun, the wind … I think they constantly find their way into my songs, almost without me noticing,” Fróes says. That connection gives her music soul and organic rhythm — fluid, unhurried and alive, suited to anthem bright blue days or dimly lit nights. That sound meets South Florida this month at Miami Beach Bandshell. The open-air venue feels like a Latin backyard party; Fróes brings the serenade. Under the palms and open Miami sky, Brazilian rhythms will spill into the salt air, joining the languages, cultures and currents that comprise South Florida’s cadence. “I’m incredibly excited because this will be one of the first opportunities to share songs from Esquina do Sol with audiences in the United States,” Fróes says of her 2026 debut album. For new listeners, “Eu Vou Pro Samba,” “Reza Braba” and “Rio Lua” offer three doorways into the album before experiencing it live. She promises moments both “intimate and delicate” and “joyful and full of movement.” It’s music for healing, falling in love, or searching for it — or simply becoming more present in your own life. Her songs invite listeners to travel without moving and find beauty in stillness. Come alone. Come with someone you love. Come knowing every lyric or discovering Fróes for the first time. “Come with an open heart!” Fróes exclaims. “You don’t need to understand Portuguese to connect with my music. Emotion has its own language.” Mari Fróes plays an all ages show 8pm Saturday, September 12 at Miami Beach Bandshell.
MAX DURANTE
MOTHICA by olivia feldman
Like a luna moth drawn to a flame, McKenzie Ellis — better known as Mothica — has found her place in the streaming-age spotlight. Using music as a vehicle to heal from trauma, she has evolved from bedroom dream pop beginnings and edged toward a heavier, nu-metal-tinged sound not unlike that of Poppy and DeathbyRomy on her latest EP, 2026’s Somewhere in Between. Now the 31-year-old songstress is alighting on South Florida to test out her alternative and hardcore chops. Recording songs on Ableton in her Brooklyn bedroom in the late 2010s, Mothica uploaded them to SoundCloud and gained legions of fans. It was on TikTok where she went viral in June 2020 with “VICES,” a synth-pop bop with catchy and honest lyrics about her favorite wicked behaviors, the ones hardest to kick. A related willingness to open up to interviewers and discuss her struggles with depression, self-harm and addiction provided a direct through line to her music and persona. Self-made, with no manager, publicist or record label, Mothica had been teasing a heavier turn with the moody electropop vocals of her previous LPs, 2022’s Nocturnal and 2024’s Kissing Death. With Somewhere in the Between, she has embraced metal guitar and dived even deeper lyrically, acknowledging painful life experiences in verse after verse. On “Evergreen Misery,” she radiates a confessional intensity worthy of Evanescence for the TikTok generation. The dreamlike music video evokes a Resident Evil meets Severance aesthetic, with Mothica entering her own office space — Mothicorp, of which her fans declare themselves “employees” — and letting herself into the basement via eye scan. Her hair half-colored in a frosty icicle shade, she resembles a lost elf trying to navigate a stygian lair while swarmed by lab-coated scientists. Then she comes to in a row of cubicles, as if to ask, which hell is worse? Although it’s a tour date headlined by nu-metal singer (and Demi Lovato spouse) Jutes, with L.A. alt-rockers wilt also on board, there’s enough kindred spirit here for the lineup to feel like an all-Mothicorp company affair. Mothica and wilt, opening as special guests for Jutes, perform 6pm Thursday, Sept. 17 at Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. mothica.com
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH 6-9PM HISPANIC HERITAGE CELEBRATION WITH
Florida Keys Brewing Company 81611 Old Hwy, Islamorada
CHRISTOPHER SPERANDIO
by kelli bodle
Few things reportedly vexed Napoleon Bonaparte more than being mocked in print by a popular British cartoonist of the era, James Gillray, who tormented France’s ambitious emperor-general from afar by depicting him as a deluded homunculus of a king. Napoleon himself, near the end of his life, is said to have remarked that Gillray did more damage to him than a dozen generals. “Gillray is the reason that we think Napoleon was short and stupid,” says PureHoney artist of the month Christopher Sperandio, who can relate to political cartooning as a bane of power-hungry rulers. A Texas-based illustrator and college professor drawing under the moniker of Pinko Joe, Sperandio is taking on the MAGA movement one single-panel comic at a time, with special attention to its leader, President Donald Trump, who has favorably compared himself to Napoleon and other historical despots. As Pinko Joe, Sperandio says he is “trying to land punches on the most corrupt administration in U.S. history.” Athough “pinko” is, as Sperandio notes, “derogatory slang for a socialist,” he feels the slur puts his artwork alter ego in distinguished comics company. “In his early days, you could call Superman a socialist,” Sperandio says. “Pinko Joe, as a character, is just following in his footsteps, fighting oligarchs and out-ofcontrol capitalists.” Sperandio creates his comics by re-inking public-domain cartoons from the 1930s and earlier and juxtaposing them with contemporary political imagery. “In my early graphic novels, I was heavily reliant on vintage comic book genres,” he says. “’I’ve been doing these daily single-panel comics, 6,000 and counting, for a long time.” Whether or not viewers recognize the source imagery or the political figures he skewers, they can appreciate his tongue-in-cheek humor and the pulpy medium he employs to convey his viewpoint in a single image and a few well-chosen words. Sperandio’s interest in vintage comic iconography extends beyond his personal practice. An associate professor at the School of Visual and Dramatic Arts at Rice University, he founded the Comic Art Teaching and Study Workshop, or CATS, on the Houston campus in 2015. Equal parts art collection and educational resource, CATS grew out of Sperandio’s belief that, as he puts it, “it’s easier to learn to draw if you have physical examples to look at.” “So I began pulling together a collection of drawings for comics and all sorts of rare and unusual comics for my students to use,” he says. “Now it’s sort of exploded — we’ve got a collection worth more than a million and a half dollars. It’s not just great material for students but also for researchers and writers.” Americans have taken time to embrace comic illustration as a fine art, and CATS has become an important resource for scholarly study of the form. But Sperandio, as an instructor, encourages experimentation. “My teaching philosophy is to support my students but to let them find their own way,” he says. “I think the last thing anybody wants to do is make work exactly like mine. I came to what I do naturally and over a long period of time. There are so many ways of working and so many influences to absorb. My advice would be to follow your nose and look at everything.” For his own continuing studies, Sperandio has traveled to Japan, where comics have long been considered art. He is currently “enmeshed in the 1,500-year legacy of papermaking,” he says, and is learning how to produce washi, a paper fashioned from mulberry bark. “The process is fascinating,” he says, “and the results are unbelievable. Using just two ingredients, this incredibly hardy material is produced.” “I’m also looking at manga — both vintage manga, which I love, and contemporary manga, which I’m not as warm on,” he says. The DIY ethos of zines, comics, and print runs through Sperandio’s lifestyle and values. “I don’t think about an audience at this point. I’m making and saying the things I want to say,” he tells us. “If other people connect with it, that’s great. And if they don’t, they are welcome to keep scrolling. Printing is democracy, plain and simple. It’s also screenless, so you don’t have right-wing, anti-life AI distorting what you’re trying to say.” “I don’t do much capitalism, but my latest book, RETALIATE FIRST, is available for pre-sale on RotlandPress. com -- it ships in October. My fonts, inspired by vintage comicbook sources, are available from RetroSupply.co
Free Daily Comic: @pinko_joe & pinkojoe.com ALSO Check CATS at cats.rice.edu
JESUS SOTO FUENTES
SILVANA ESTRADA by abel folgar
Most stringed instruments begin as a block of wood. Before there is a melody, before there is an audience, before there is even a song, there are hands: Measuring, carving, sanding and patiently coaxing an object into existence. Music, at its most fundamental, begins not with performance but with craftsmanship. For Grammywinning Mexican singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada, those lessons weren’t learned in a conservatory. They were learned in her parents’ workshop.
Raised in Veracruz by luthier parents, Estrada grew up watching music take physical shape. The process of creation — the patience, care and reverence required to transform raw materials into something capable of carrying emotion — would eventually become inseparable from her own artistic identity. “I really respect the process,” Estrada tells PureHoney. “Sometimes there are really long processes that don’t match what’s expected from the music industry. I try to shut down all the noise from outside.” That same sensibility led her to the Venezuelan cuatro, the compact four-stringed instrument that has become one of the defining voices of her music. Though rooted in Venezuelan folk traditions, the cuatro found an unexpected home in Estrada’s hands, giving her songs an intimate warmth and rhythmic subtlety that have distinguished her among a new generation of Latin American singer-songwriters. “The cuatro gave me the freedom of not understanding,” she says. Rather than trying to master the instrument through theory, Estrada discovered something far more valuable: intuition. “I stopped trying to do the most difficult thing and started trying to find the most beautiful thing,” she says. In an age where software can compose melodies, replicate voices and generate entire recordings in seconds, Estrada’s work feels almost radical in its deliberate humanity. Her songs rarely chase perfection; instead, they embrace texture, silence and emotional honesty. “I’m going to be looking for recordings where I can hear little mistakes,” she says. “So I’ll know there’s another human being across the sound.” If her music offers any lesson, it’s not to resist the future. It’s about remembering that no matter how sophisticated our tools become, the most enduring art still begins with a pair of human hands. Silvana Estrada performs 6pm, Sunday, September 27 at Miami Beach Bandshell. silvanaestrada.com
ATO RECORDS
MARIACHI EL BRONX by tim moffatt
A band named after a borough on the East Coast, The Bronx are from L.A. But this isn’t about The Bronx, not entirely anyway. The Bronx and Mariachi El Bronx share a corpus callosum in the minds of its members; that is to say they are competing identities within the same brain. The Bronx are a punk band that gets the members half the time, and Mariachi El Bronx are, well, a mariachi band that gets those members, plus a few more, the other half of the time. Frontman and lead crooner Matt Caughthran, speaking on a recent NPR music podcast, said The Bronx decided it was time after turning 20 as a band to follow their hearts and put on their old “trajes de charro” — traditional mariachi suits — and make a new album. Mariachi El Bronx IV is their first as El Bronx since 2014. Caughthran also told The Big Takeover that the switch to Bronx en español helps him and his mates strike a balance between raw aggression and cinematic bolero beauty. And how weird is that in practice? While the connective tissue between hardcore punk and mariachi music seems thin, the proximity to Mexican culture in Southern California must have had an impact on anyone interested in music from the region. Plus, mariachi music is about life, love, machismo, betrayal, death, politics, revolution — basically the gritty stuff of existence. That fits the traditional storytelling bill for scrappy music genres, especially punk. Consider that when Joe Strummer left The Clash, he famously laid low, out of the public eye, for almost two decades before resurfacing with the world music-tinged (and woefully under-appreciated) Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros. If anything, the most real thing any punk can do when entering that middle section of this mortal coil — were not calling it “middle age” — Is look around and recognize that being angry is natural, but so is every other feeling that makes us human. They all belong in songs. Mariachi el Bronx, with openers Bedouin Soundclash and Max Diaz, play 7pm Sunday, October 4 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale. mariachielbronx.com
TEHILLA DE CASTRO
DOMI & JD BECK by tim moffatt
DOMi & JD Beck embody the chemical cocktail of creativity that is produced when two musical prodigies come together to make a sound; it’s an undiscovered element on the periodic table. The product is a spacey, jazzy drum and keyboard combination that could be described as Medeski, Martin & Wood meets Battles, but that may be an oversimplification.
Domi Louna is a French musician who started her dalliance with keyboardistry at age 3 and enrolled at the Conservatoire de Nancy at age 5 to study classical and jazz. She then moved on to the Conservatoire de Paris and Berklee College of Music in Boston. It was at Berklee that she garnered the attention of musical notables such as Anderson .Paak, Thundercat and Louis Cole, all of whom recruited her for their projects. JD Beck, growing up near Dallas, charted his own precocious path on piano at age 5 and a move to drums at age 9. By age 10, he was gigging and being mentored by Cleon Edwards a.k.a Gud Foot, who plays drums with Erykah Badu. Louna and Beck met as teen-agers at the 2018 NAMM conference and the stir they created as very online duo took time to yield a proper debut album: 2022’s NOT TiGHT on .Paak’s Apeshit Inc. label. The reviews skewed positive in Pitchfork and elsewhere, and Grammy nominations soon followed for a record exuding a youthful charm full of complex time-signatures and break beats. Skip ahead to 2026 and their newest release, Who Asked?, on the storied Blue Note jazz label, is giving reviewers whiplash with its whirlwind of orchestral sounds and easy-listening harmonies, everything supercharged with a mischievous, chaotic spirit. And, really, what were the critics expecting? This dynamic duo dares you to pigeonhole them, only to demolish the formula and make a new thing with the pieces. Like musical kintsugi, an aural fixation with exploring the beauty in the broken, DOMi & JD Beck are finding their way through indietronica and flower-power freedom with shifty time signatures and chamber-pop melodies. Domi & JD Beck play 7:30pm Friday, September 18 at Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. domiandjdbeck.com
F R OW NTOW N
UNDERGROU
111 N. M Street, Lake Worth Beach,
ND
C A IT L IN F ROW N ON V IE W 24 / 7 T HROU G H L A B OR DAY PA RT Y : SEPTEMBER 5TH 6-8PM
F L @m t n spa c ega l l e r y w w w . m t n spa c e . com
SONY
THE STROKES by erik kvarnberg
The Strokes are a big name. Their 2001 debut album, Is This It, still sits high up on critics’ lists of best rock albums of all time, and for good reason. A portrait of wised-up, restless youth, and an influence on countless other indie acts, Is This It and the follow-up, 2003’s Room on Fire, cemented The Strokes as a foundational band. Six years since their last release, and 25 (!) since their first, The Strokes have released Reality Awaits and, wow, things have changed. In place of longago raucous radio singles such as “Last Nite” and “Reptilia,” frontman Julian Casablanca and his mates are mourning their bygone youth. The Strokes have always taken themselves seriously, but Reality Awaits finds them less focused on a catchy hook or a chorus that gets repeated ad infinitum. Casablanca, no longer writing from the perspective of a young adult, is instead reflecting on his life and lessons learned over a quarter century. Lyrics such as “Can you be more than what you say?” — from opening track “Psycho Shit” — convey the tenor of the whole album. “Lonely in the Future” declares, “I heard that years ago when I was a kid / I didn’t want to do it years ago, but I did,” which could allude to almost anything in the 48-year-old singer’s life. Much of the album feels responsive to the times, with Casablancas ruminating on aging, consumerism, and memories of chasing fame — all with only one mention of AI. Musically, some songs — such as “Dine N Dash” — build tension and atmosphere, like a fist tightening until the knuckles turn white. Yet a seeming favorite from the album is “Falling Out Of Love,” with its gentle melancholy and interwoven lullaby melodies. What might be the biggest point of contention on Reality Awaits is the use of AutoTune throughout. On first listen, it may be jarring, and it’s not for everybody, but clearly it is done in an intentional way for Casablancas to flavor his voice, much like the vocal distortion used in the early albums. The Strokes, with openers Geordie Greep and Promiseland, perform 7pm Sunday, September 13 at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood. thestrokes.com