PUREHONEY 130

7/29

REVOLUTION LIVE: Against All Authority, Suicide Machines, JER

POORHOUSE: Radiobaghdad, Shakers, Goat Rope

>>> READ MORE IN PH

HOLLYWOOD BEACH THEATRE: The Summit, The Boas, Timothy LaRoque, The Def Cats

FPL SOLAR AMP: Dominic Fike, Hether

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: Miami Girls Rock Camp

CENTENNIAL PARK: Boynton Beach Night Market

ITHINK AMP: Dave Matthews Band

ARTS GARAGE: Start Me Up! Stones Tribute

PROPAGANDA: BDSM Comedy Show

BAR NANCY: Vice City Vandals, Miss Amerikan Vampyre, Fuakata

7/30

HARD ROCK LIVE: John Fogerty

MIAMI BCH BANDSHELL: Intl Hispanic Ballet

8/2

RESPECTABLE STREET: Up the Drunx – ITB night – Punk & Ska DJ’s

BAR NANCY: Strange Bass

8/3

PROPAGANDA: The Queers, The

Jasons, Billy Doom is Dead, Straight Jacket >>> READ MORE IN PH

LIBRARY: Wax On Wax Off

ITHINK AMP: Disturbed

BAR NANCY: Hardcore For Punx

RESPECTABLE STREET: Karaoke on the Patio

8/4

RESPECTABLE STREET: Heavy Metal Patio, Seven Serpents, Iron Buddha

REVOLUTION LIVE: Still Alive, In a Nutshell

THE PEACH: Peach Artist Group Show

NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark ft Adam

Douglass Trio

CULTURE ROOM: A Flock of Seagulls, Astari Nite

GRAMPS: Cannibal Kids, Rohna, The Boas, Folktale San Pedro

PROPAGANDA: Opprobrium, Demonf*ck, Birth of Tragedy, INNER, Rize

BAR NANCY: Disco AF

8/5

RESPECTABLE STREET: Maestro Bass Invaders

MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Mustard

Service presents Zest Fest

THE PEACH: August Art Walk

PROPAGANDA: Ambush, Another Black Day, Grin Cynic

BAR NANCY: Fire & Ice Summer Reunion

ARTS GARAGE: Smooth STB Returns

8/9

RESPECTABLE STREET: Up the Drunx – ITB night – Punk & Ska DJ’s

BAR NANCY: L80’s Night

8/10

RESPECTABLE STREET: Karaoke on the Patio

BAR NANCY: Stereo Joule

PROPAGANDA: Open Mic Night

8/11

RESPECTABLE STREET: Mount Sinai, Mykedelic, REVOLUTIONWaterplant LIVE: Welcome to Destruction, Hairdaze

THE PEACH: The Borin Brothers & Guests

NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark ft Natural Movers Foundation

I THINK AMP: Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, Too $hort

PROPAGANDA: Pans, Feral Ember, Violet Silhouette

BAR NANCY: Breaking Sound

ARTS GARAGE: Hot Pants De France

8/12

CULTURE ROOM: Black Flag – My War

Tour >>> READ MORE IN PH

RESPECTABLE STREET: A Light Divided, Rise Among Rivals, Baron

REVOLUTION LIVE: Jesse & Joy

THE CITADEL: UP NEXT MUSIC FEST ft We’re Wolves, Young Fiction, Petrichor, Let Me Bleed, Young Cassidy, Billy Doom is Dead, Davie, Further North Further South, Corazon Rabioso, Viscaya

THE PEACH: Sandman Sleeps, Rude Television

PROPAGANDA : Scream Queens, Candle of the Mass, Fault, Optional

BAR NANCY: Kitchen Club

ARTS GARAGE: One Hit Wonders 60s & 70s

8/13

RESPECTABLE STREET: Live Music Collective

ARTESANO CAFE: Broward Folk Club Open Mic ft Aaron Nathans, Michael G. Rondstadt

GRAMPS: Strawberry Milk Cult

8/16

RESPECTABLE STREET: Up the Drunx – ITB night – Punk & Ska DJ’s

PROPAGANDA: 33 Lions & friends

BAR NANCY: Pantheon Entertainment

8/17

RESPECTABLE STREET: Karaoke on the Patio

REVOLUTION LIVE: Baylen Levine

BAR NANCY: Ricky Valido & Hialeah Hillbillies

8/18

REVOLUTION LIVE: Take this to Your Grave

RESPECTABLE STREET: MDRN RUIN: Paul Klov

THE PEACH: Toy Gun Club & Guests

NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark ft The Hoochie Digs

PROPAGANDA: Cosplay Dungeons & Dragons

ARTS GARAGE: Nostaljah Returns

8/19

ITHINK AMP: The Smashing Pumpkins

>>> READ MORE IN PH

REVOLUTION LIVE: JPEG Mafia x Danny Brown, Kenny Mason

RESPECTABLE STREET: Disco Never Dies

PROPAGANDA: Comedy Night

BAR NANCY: 808 Life

GRAMPS: Tim Cappello

ARTS GARAGE: Forever Whitney ft Nina Skyy

8/20

RESPECTABLE STREET: Left To Suffer, Distant, Justice For The Damned, Cabal

REVOLUTION LIVE: Jvke

PROPAGANDA : Lighthouse

ITHINK AMP: 50 Cent

ARTS GARAGE: Room to Blum

8/23

REVOLUTION LIVE: Clutch, Giovanni and the Hired Guns, Mike Dillon

RESPECTABLE STREET: Up the Drunx – ITB night – Punk & Ska DJ’s

BAR NANCY: Burlesque

8/24

RESPECTABLE STREET: Karaoke on the Patio

8/25

RESPECTABLE STREET: Summer of Goth w/ Rux Vendetta

REVOLUTION LIVE: Subliminal Doubt, Live from ’05

THE PEACH: Vinyl Night

NORTON MUSEUM: Art After Dark ft Pianist

Barbara Gomulka

PROPAGANDA: 1983, Killed by Florida, 13 Bats, 4to Reich

BAR NANCY: Alexa & the Old Fashioneds

8/26

PROPAGANDA: Cardiel, Rude

Television, Goat Rope, Headfoam

>>> READ MORE IN PH

RESPECTABLE STREET: Radiohead Tribute ft Lavola, Sweet Bronco

REVOLUTION LIVE: Maiden Mania,The Dirtt

THE PEACH: Dr. Mellow & Guests

POMPANO AMP: Matisyahu, G. Love & Special Sauce, Cydeways

BAR NANCY: Creature Cage

ARTS GARAGE: The Smoogies

8/27

MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Flamenco

Sephardit

ITHINK AMP: Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper

8/30

LIBRARY: Tiny Gear Concert

PROPAGANDA: Wub Wednesday Local DJs

BAR NANCY: Luca Vive Flamingo Rekords

9/1-2

DNTN WEST PALM BEACH:

BUMBLEFEST 7 featuring

DEATH VALLEY GIRLS (LA), DUSTED (Nova Scotia), AL LOVER (LA), GNARCISSISTS (NY), GAL MUSETTE (LA), CHEW (ATL), KAIROS CREATURE

CLUB (JAX), AL LOVER’S WORLD PARTY (DJ SET), Rickolus, The Dewars, Ducats, Sweet Bronco, Lindsey Mills, Zippur, The Dreambows, Rude Television, Sagittarius Aquarius, Emily Blaylock, Hope, Thorns, Flower Child Slumber Party, Brett Staska, Stony Vibez, Perry Strait Band, Renan Nerone Trio, Zoo

Peculiar, Sumsun, Broot McCoy, Sko Gudino, Luci Lind, TC-Silk, Supa Dave, Da Faktion Records & Friends, Tiny Gear Concert ft Locad, Gwen Karabensh, babygorilla, 8path, Wax on Wax Off ft Meaux, Medley, The.Illustrious.13, Fat Tony, Jealous

Lovers DJ’s, Eden in the Dark DJ’s! Discounted $30 EARLY BEE TICKETS only available until July 29!

SMASHING PUMPKINS

by OLIVIA FELDMAN

I first saw the Smashing Pumpkins at Miami’s Bayfront Park in 2015, during a tour called “The End Times” with Marilyn Manson. My friend and I somehow ended up pushing our way to the front, sneaking some VIP wristbands onto our arms. As the sun set on the amphitheatr and the headliners appeared, frontman Billy Corgan, the regular guy from Chicago, became a looming presence on a stage backlit in sky-blue hues. I took a somewhat blurry photo and I also remember that even through below-par sound that night the Pumpkins put on an impressive ’90s showcase.

On a more intimate tour the next year, “In Plainsong,” that visited the Broward Center, the band was even more in its element. Corgan truly enjoyed himself the entire time, smiling as he pared down some of his biggest hits to acoustic arrangements — and to rousing audience applause.

After years of discord over lineup changes, substance abuse and Corgan’s never-ending snark, the Smashing Pumpkins now seem to be in a place of relative peace. Original bassist D’Arcy Wretzky isn’t aboard, but original guitarist James Iha is, having returned in 2018 after a long absence. Jimmy Chamberlain is still kicking on drums. Guitarist Jeff Schroeder joined in 2006, making him a mainstay.

When the Smashing Pumpkins began their rise, grunge was alive and well, and alt-rock was ascendant. The Pumpkins brought their own ideas into that space, melding an early emo sense with hard rock, shoegaze and psychedelia for a sound that was undeniably unique.

A head-turning debut, “Gish,” arrived in 1991 four months before Nirvana’s epochal “Nevermind.” But it was “Siamese Dream” in 1993, with its thrumming first track, “Cherub Rock,” that saw the Smashing Pumpkins leading the next alt-rock sortie into the mainstream. A grand concept album followed, 1995’s “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” which, in its depictions of emotional turmoil and trauma, filled a void left by the death of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. Suddenly it was Corgan wearing the mantle of Generation X rock poet.

The newest Pumpkins output, “ATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts,” serves as a weighty coda to a conceptual trilogy that began with “Melon Collie” and 2000’s “Machina/The Machines of God.” Released in three installments over six months of 2022-2023, ATUM is a whopping 33 tracks — plus ten additional tracks drawn from prior projects released as a kind of coda under the name “Zodeon at Crystal Hall.” With fans swimming in new material, Corgan created a weekly podcast, “Thirty-Three with William Patrick Corgan,” to dissect the tracks and discuss the band’s creative process.

“ATUM” revives a character from the “Mellon Collie” song “Zero” and the “Machina” song “Glass.” Going by the name of Shiny, he was exiled to space for thought crimes. After returning to Earth, his acolytes try to remind everyone of his importance to the world, while elites keep trying to bring him down. It’s a hero’s saga told prog rock-style, with groovy metal sounds and synth-pop added. Watching the video for “Beguiled,” the first “ATUM” single, it’s clear the Pumpkins have not lost their artistic, tongue-in-cheek charm. In front of a swirling colored background, Corgan dons a white dress not unlike a clown suit that also makes him look like an angel of death. He is followed by ballerinas and an Abraham Lincoln look-alike dancing in front of a confused-looking Chamberlin

The outspoken Corgan has not been music’s favorite person over the years and is, in his own words, “no stranger to controversy.” But the release of “ATUM” suggests he might be ready to come down from his soapbox, at least for a little while. “This is the band regaining its high ground morally and intuitively,” Corgan said in the second podcast episode. “In essence, when we’re a music band first, and politicians and shills and salesmen second, the band has tended to do better on the world stage.”

The Pumpkins in 2023 are active on social media, popping out band memes (and, of late, a few “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” movie memes). One shows Corgan with and without hair; another is a clip of him smiling politely through a boring conversation. At this stage, he’s not taking himself too seriously and embracing his rock statesman status.

The Smashing Pumpkins, with special guests Interpol and Rival Sons, perform 6:30pm Saturday, August 19 at iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach. smashingpumpkins.com

PAUL

SCOTT SUGIUCHI

by TIM MOFFATT

When last we met with the intrepid Scott Sugiuchi, he was living in Baltimore, playing bass in rock ’n’ roll bands and generally making art as a daily habit. His work was also kind of a lifeline: Sugiuchi-made Covid-19 PSA posters (see PureHoney 120, June 2020) drew widespread praise for the relatable way they talked about safety in that somber and scary time.

A lot has happened since. Sugiuchi — the poster and visuals artist for this year’s Bumblefest — traded in his Baltimore city vistas for Santa Fe, New Mexico mountain views. “Living in a small, artsy kind of town is exactly where I want to be right now,” he tells PureHoney. “I was able to set up a nice studio space off my garage and fill it with all my crap — I mean, ‘Inspiration.’”

In previous interviews, Sugiuchi has talked about collaborating with legendary artist and designer Art Chantry on a retrospective of Estrus Records, the notorious wisenheimer label from the Pacific Northwest that ranged across punk, indie, garage and more. That work is all but completed with the arrival of “Estrus Records: Shovelin’ The Shit Since ’87,” issued by Korero Press.

“I finally finished the Estrus Records book after about 4 years of work,” Sugiuchi writes “By far one of the hardest things I’ve ever worked on. I was very lucky to work with a super-talented writer, Chris Coyle, and I can’t say enough about getting to work with Estrus label founder Dave Crider and designer Art Chantry.

“Both of these guys were gods to me back in the ’90s, and sometimes it’s very disappointing to meet your heroes, but not in this instance. Both of these guys were total gems, inspiring, encouraging and straight-up cool dudes to work with. There’s a reason the label was so successful and attracted bands like The Mummies, Man or Astroman? and Southern Culture on the Skids—the power of the people behind the label. Geniuses!”

The book team mounted a Kickstarter drive to fund “extra goodies” including a dust jacket and “sick green ink printing on the page edges,” and hit their goal in about two hours, according to Sugiuchi. “The response has been amazing,” he marvels. While the book hits shelves in November, Kickstarter backers get their copies in September. A book signing tour of the West Coast and a few other cities is also planned. “Lots of surprises in store for that one,” Sugiuchi promises.

Apart from the Estrus project, Sugiuchi found himself slinging freelance design until a dream job materialized as art director for Austin, Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse Cinema — a company known for, among other things, its fantastic movie poster re-imaginings.

“It’s a thirty-nine venue and growing theater chain that serves insanely good food and locally sourced beers that also caters to movie nerds of all stripes— mainstream, indy, obscuro VHS obsessives, etc.,” Sugiuchi says. “It’s a ridiculously fun job. In the last year, I’ve worked on everything from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” to “Oppenheimer.” The sheer number of brands and people I get to interact with, Mattel, A24, Paramount, Warner Bros., IFC, Wu Tang’s RZA, Wes Anderson, Disney, Marvel, etc., is pretty much a dream. And the company is just full of inspiring, cool people.”

It’s tough to imagine someone better suited to his job. But Sugiuchi still does freelance artwork for musicians, many of whom come back to him again and again. He mentions a few clients: “Lots of work with Hi-Tide Recordings, Tiki Overlords, Hidden Harbor, Oni Press (“Scott Pilgrim,” etc.), Double Crown Records and tons of other stuff. I often can’t believe how much FUN work I get to do on a daily basis, no complaints.”

It’s a given that none of us truly knows where we might end up, and the last few years in particular have been strange ones when it comes to change. As the world grappled with a pandemic, Sugiuchi was on a path toward artistic fulfillment and professional satisfaction that most people might not dare to imagine. But that’s what artists do; they make their dreams and ours a reality. Who knows where he’ll be three years from now.

Bumblefest is 40 acts on five stages, Sept. 1 and 2, in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com. Visit scottsugiuchi.com

CARDIEL

by TIM MOFFATT

Once upon a time a couple of skateboarders from Venezuela decided to start a band and make music for skateboarding videos. As plans go, it wasn’t a bad one; any number of cool bands got their start on extreme sports videos — skateboarding videos being the original purveyor of thrashing fun. So it was in 2010 that Samantha Ambrosio and Miguel Fraino left Venezuela for Mexico City and put their plan into action. And what was this skate punk duo with stoner, psychedelic and dub influences going to call themselves? Well why not invoke the influential skateboarder John Cardiel? You could hardly pick a more inspirational figure, to judge by this profile of Cardiel for Transworld Skateboarding in 1993, which said: “The mark John is making in the skate scene is like a terminal illness. He can never be cured, and he just won’t go away. John is just 100 percent balls out all the time, and he is destined to win and become a legend in his own time. If cojones were measured by the size of eggs, John Cardiel’s would be those of an ostrich.”

The plan worked: Cardiel the band merged a fast, aggressive sound with psychedelic dub and has become a force within skate sub-culture worldwide. They became icons in their adopted Mexico, playing events for Vans and Thrasher before making their way to SXSW in Austin, Texas, in 2015 and 2017.

Ambrosio and and Fraino have toured with Pennywise, Radio Moscow, Teenage Bottlerocket, Torche, American Sharks, H2O, Green Jelly and AJ Dávila, among many others. Their exploits have taken them across the Americas and to Europe. More recently they toured the U.S. West Coast with Ladrones — fellow polycultural punks, themselves hailing from Atlanta, Georgia by way of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Cardiel’s all-out commitment to what they do embodies skate culture at its best. Ambrosio and Fraino are pursuing their vision with an intensity and dedication that would make their namesake proud. Skate or die, as the saying goes.

Cardiel, with Goat Rope, Rude Television and Headfoam, play 9pm Saturday, August 26 at Propaganda in Lake Worth. cardieltheband.com

BLACK FLAG

by TIM MOFFATT

Black Flag is shorthand for hardcore punk excellence. For better or worse, they elevated an outsider art form to a visceral, full-contact experience for those that do not deal in subtleties. New York hardcore has always been good at marketing their scene, but Southern California’s Black Flag upped the game for every band that came after. Unsurprisingly, they would become simpatico with another misunderstood East Coast band synonymous with 80’s punk rock that have an iconic logo: the Misfits.

However, social cachet can only be stretched so far before it loses its ability to snap back. In the last few years, the name Black Flag has been sullied by questionable decisions and line-up changes. But, the band has decided to honor one of their classic offerings to the genre by touring for their album, “My War,” and doing a second set of audience favorites.

While the band has always had a rotating cast of characters, “My War” is an album made at a time when the stars aligned. The intensity and performances on the record are a perfect encapsulation of alienation and anger, personified. Frankly, the album, and specifically the tune “My War,” are a blunt instrument of destruction that is the auditory equivalent of taking shots to the head in a sweaty circle pit.

While some won’t understand a joyous release of intense anger, this record has become a rite of passage for teenage time bombs worldwide. While this line-up does not have anyone from that recording — other than the copyright purveyor of all things Black Flag, Greg Ginn — that doesn’t mean the music isn’t still a catharsis.

“My War” as a record, a song, and an ethos is always worth celebrating. While the new frontman Mike Vallely is a world-class skateboarding badass, he is not Henry Rollins, Keith Morris, Chavo Pederast or Dez Cadena. But the band’s live ethos has always been to translate the ideas of the record, not celebrate individual performances. And for that, we salute you, Black Flag!

Black Flag plays “My War” and a second set, 7:30pm Saturday, August 12 at the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. No opener. blackflagband.com

DUSTED

by DAVID ROLLAND

You can almost get the sense of Brian Borcherdt’s two main musical projects simply by their names. Holy Fuck is chaotic, hedonistic, a party in sonic form. Dusted, which Borcherdt will be bringing to Bumblefest in early September, is quieter, prettier, cleaner and more introspective.

Borcherdt grew up in Nova Scotia and was obsessed with sounds ranging from Led Zeppelin to birds chirping. “My Mom would play piano and Neil Young records. I started guitar at 12 and played all the time,” he tells PureHoney over the phone in the midst of a family vacation. “I was passionate about guitar, but I never learned anything. I still can’t play my scales. I’ll try to do a guitar solo and I’ll just back myself in a corner.”

After playing with plenty of metal and grunge bands, he found his first taste of success with Holy Fuck. “That became my main band because it was the most successful,” Borcherdt says. “Even though that was more electronic music, I’d always bring a guitar with me on tour. My ambition has always been to write music; I love making up stories and realities in my head. The guitar for me is all about daydreaming. I’d make some quieter music, so I could use two very different parts of my brain.”

That quieter music eventually became Dusted, a lo-fi indie project, more recently with echoes of Nick Drake or Elliott Smith Dusted’s third record, “III,” came out a couple years ago, but the songs still feel new to Borcherdt since he never had a chance to really play them live.

Those tracks go back almost a decade, to right after he recorded “Total Dust,” his first album as Dusted. ”I’d plugged in an old laptop and found sketches of all these songs I wrote in 2011 that I totally forgot about. I heard my old songs new, like it wasn’t myself. I couldn’t even remember how the chords went. I rerecorded them again right away like I was at an open mic night. I’d do three takes at the most.”

Borcherdt is going to take these songs down to Florida where he’ll perform a few of them along with a few of his biggest hits with his good friend and drummer Loel Campbell. He says they’ll also play some unreleased tunes. “It’s a waste of Loel’s time if we only do the old stuff,” Borcherdt says. “We want to take advantage of this show to learn some new songs, so maybe we can turn it into a studio session.”

They’re also scheming to bring another artist playing at Bumblefest on stage with them: “I’d like to have someone sing harmonies with me, so we’ll see if I can pull an unlucky bystander on to the stage. We’re going to make it a heavy, louder set to compete with the drunks in the room. This definitely won’t be a broody, somber show.”

In conversation, Borcherdt sounds like an artist who looks for inspiration wherever he can even from the small 600-person town his family resides in.”After being in Toronto for 20 years we moved to this small town in Nova Scotia. It’s cool but we question our choices every day. It’s not really a place with a vibrant music scene.”

He’s not letting the lack of population for having a productive remainder of 2023. “Holy Fuck has a new record that we’re almost done with,” he says. “We’re not hungry teenagers so we take our time. I have another project, Quilting, which is spooky acoustic music.”

As a father of a youngster he can also brag about becoming a viral kids’ music sensation. In 2015 he dropped “Chipmunkson16speed,” which was exactly as described. ”I always enjoyed taking records and putting them on antique record players on the wrong speed. I did that with Smurfs records and a friend suggested Alvin and the Chipmunks. It worked great. The music turns into doom metal, but Alvin’s voice all of a sudden sounded normal. It made kid’s music sound normal and it was all over the internet. I wish I could have made some money off of it,” he laughs.

Bumblefest is Sept. 1 and 2 in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, @dusted_brianborcherdt

ANNA EDWARDS BORCHERDT

GAL MUSETTE

by ABEL FOLGAR

A magical enchantress bridging the present and a distant past, Gal Musette is riding high on the whimsy of her latest single, “ Into the Blue ,” and straight into this year’s Bumblefest to delight fans with her personable style of baroque piano pop.

“It has been the most chaotic, eventful and transitional year of my life, to be honest,” she tells PureHoney about readying her next release, “ Pendulum .” “It’s coming out on Oct. 6, and I could not be more thrilled to share it!”

Musette is the nom de plume of Californian Grace Freeman, who plies a sound inspired by the bygone “bal-musette” scene popular in late-1800s France. “Into the Blue” is her last single previewing the album, and a hint to the more rhythmic feel she’s concocted with producer Jon O’Brien. She considers the new work bolder and denser than her previous efforts, and a nice evolution from their work together on 2021’s “Backwards Lullaby,” a nostalgically somber exploration of romantic hopelessness.

Musette’s other musical partner on “Pendulum” is Olivia Mainville, aka Via Mardot, a Michigan-born musician with an evocative stage name and a nostalgic Francophone streak of her own, as an updater of 20th Century French ye-ye pop. “She’s also all over my new record, on which she performed strings, theremin, bells and so much more,” Musette says. “She’s such a genius.”

Musette arrived as precocious young talent daring to one-up The Magnetic Fields and their indie-pop opus, “ 69 Love Songs ,” by compiling an astonishing “ 70 Love Songs .” And she was just getting warmed up.

Festival-goers can expect a performance evoking the sweetness of bubblegum pop, the earnestness of folk and the panoramic grandiosity of Irving Berlin’s Great American Songbook. And that’s just when she’ll be on stage — like any curious Bumblefest attendee, she’s looking forward to the two-day event.

“I had such a wonderful time performing last year, enjoyed the beautiful performances, and met some great folks,” she said. “This year’s audience is definitely in for another incredible lineup and a great vibe !”

Bumblefest is 40 acts on 5 stages, Sept. 1 and 2, in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, galmusettemusic.com

ALEX

K. JUSTICE

DEATH VALLEY GIRLS

by CARLY CASSANO

In our conversation with Bonnie Bloomgarden, leader and singer-songwriter of the mystical L.A. rock band Death Valley Girls, we’re musing about the things we need to do to feel healthy — self care, like getting outside, time with friends, exploring, exercising, and so on. Suddenly, as if struck by a bolt of electricity, she cries, “Some of us need to write a whole album for our future incarnations!”

That album is their latest release, “Islands in the Sky” (2023). The backstory as Bloomgarden tells PureHoney ahead of the band playing Bumblefest is that she, drummer Rikki Styxx, bassist Sarah Linton and guitarist Larry Schemel went up to Rikki’s cabin in the California mountains and let the setting be a channel. “The way the wind moves through the forest, it was a profound experience just hearing that for the first time,” she says. “I was like, this feels right, this feels like home.”

Asked how where she’s living affects her as an artist, Bloomgarden says, “I change and grow so much everywhere I go. I’m coming back to my true self and also going farther out into what I really wanna be.”

If we look at Death Valley Girls’ music over the last decade, it’s possible to spot some of the growth and change. On “Street Venom” (2014) — not exactly a “trees, and water, and green” vibe, but a look at anguish and mental illness — Bonnie howls about missing (of all things) a sense of freedom in “Sanitarium Blues.” The next track, “Arrow,” is about what it’s like to experience codependency.

On “Glow in the Dark” (2016) the songs are still grounded in the physical plane. “I’m a Man Too” is a darkly comic answer to No Doubt’s “Just A Girl” — classic takes on what it can feel like to be powerless/powerful under the patriarchy. By “Darkness Rains” (2018), the songs are more esoteric, but no less relatable. These are songs of empowerment by any and all means necessary. “Disaster (Is What We’re After)” — with a music video they went to Miami for that features Iggy Pop recreating Andy Warhol’s “Eating a Hamburger” — really flips the convention of modern culture on its head.

With “Under the Spell of Joy” (2020) the narrative has turned truly spiritual, not only because it alludes to the oneness, nonlinear time and astral projection, but also because it’s a story of discovering oneself through self-love. And through “Islands in the Sky,” the lessons learned today for future selves are transmuted from wind through the trees into ways to be happy.

“I’ve been on a really long journey to kind of heal,” Bloomgarden says. “And all of the things that I did, each new layer that I find some peace in, I feel obligated to share. I’ve always felt compelled to share, ’cus it kills me to think that anyone else is suffering, if I know a way not to.”

Meditation is one way she knows. “It’s just hard to think that just breathing and noticing thoughts for even 10 minutes a day will affect all the other minutes in the day,” she says. “It’s so crazy — if you play guitar for 10 minutes a day, that really adds up by the end of the month!”

She tells us how much she values rituals and rites, acknowledging that they’ve been uprooted by the dominant global culture. When asked what a perfect day looks like for her, Bloomgarden keeps it simple: “I think it’s just, wake up, walk the dog around a lake or something, and then play a show — open up a show for someone we really respect — and then get home early back to the dog, and then like, have really, really cool dreams.

“The project I’m working on now is making myself wake up when I write a song in my dream, and recording it on voice memo. I decided that I’m gonna record all of the songs from my dreams no matter how ridiculous they are. So I’m gonna have a dream EP hopefully pretty soon.” She offers, “You should do it too. I think everyone should do it!”

Bumblefest is Sept. 1 and 2 in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, deathvalleygirls.bandcamp.com

GNARCISSISTS

by TIM MOFFATT

Most bands are boring: They pick a dependable sound/influence/genre and stick with it to the end. But sometimes the world gets lucky, as if Martians had just deigned to join the human race in order to help us advance as a species. And truthfully, that’s the most punk rock thing an artist can do — whatever they want. But everyone, even the least pre-conceived among us, has to start somewhere.

Gnarcissists, who will perform at Bumblefest, are a band of New York City-based music lovers who take inspiration from a little bit of everything — in the tradition of many NYC bands that came before them — while exuding a “mischievous, iconoclastic and grotesquely charming energy,” to quote the glowing write-up from their hosts at SXSW in 2019, when

The group gets some juju from Richard Hell and the Voidoids, adds a dash of Ramones spunk, and translates the live performance into something akin to a Butthole Surfers experience. What does that sound like? Like huffing paint in a sawmill with a raging hangover and an angry hard-on. The kindred souls they’ve shared stages with include Amyl & the Sniffers, Black Lips, Surfbort, Gibby Haynes, Dead Boys, Roky Erickson, The Nude Party and Tropical Fuck Storm, if that gives you some idea.

In a brief, co-signed update for PureHoney, band members said they’ve just finished recording their first full-length album, which is being produced by Gus Oberg, best known for his long association with New York indie-rock heroes The Strokes. “The record was definitely something we’ve been waiting to do for a long time,” the band reports, “and it was a pretty wild and fun experience recording with Gus.”

As that debut winds its way toward a release, this is a good time to catch these new torchbearers of the weirdo, bon vivant, musical interloper tradition whose practitioners bleed feedback and get gnarly with audiences, and only follow the rules they make for themselves. Bumblefest, with 40 acts on 5 stages, is Sept. 1 and 2 in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, gnarcissists.bandcamp.com

SARAH JARRETT

by KELLI BODLE

Contemporary collage artist Sarah Jarrett wants us to “embrace the eccentric,” and she leads by example: From her home in the quiet English countryside, the PureHoney featured artist for August begins our online video interview surrounded by towers of books and manic pixie meme girl looks as she settles in to consider her long career.

“Most of my images explore the human relationship with nature in some way,” Jarrett says. “I love botanicals; I love metaphors, symbolism, folklore, and fairy tales.” These influences are often distilled into images of elegant women who appear to exist simultaneously in Northern Renaissance paintings (1425-1500) and Pop Surrealist glossy magazines. Picture Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling and Hi-Fructose magazine all at once. Jarrett’s work — portraiture with uncanny flourishes that draw the eye again and again — conjures quite the visual spell.

Her style emerged from years of training in photography at the Harrow School of Art & Brighton University, with a later focus on textiles — which harmoniously meld to create brightly colored vignettes filled with exotic flora and fauna that, while beautiful, appear just a little bit off. Textures and patterns overflow and envelop eyes, lips, and hair so that every part of the body has its own decorative flourish.

To add an element of the strange, Jarrett might flip an eyeball upside down or replace a mouth with a flower — flowers are metaphors to her — and pin another closed mouth elsewhere to the visage. One particularly goth piece is of a woman in a demure white gown wearing a delicate crown atop her head — and baring the bloody maw of a vampire, slightly ajar and stained, as if she’s sizing up the viewer. “When making that sort of work, there is a thin line between things looking too realistic or too imaginary,” Jarrett says. “Trying to get the balance of that right is quite a difficult thing.”

When the analog portion of the creative act is done, she uses the Procreate app to add and subtract, sculpt imagery, and fill in colors. Her illustrations — combining Europe’s art-historical past and storytelling with a postmodernist storytelling bite — are the covers for recent editions of novels by Isabel Allende, Ann Patchett and more. She also licenses pieces for album covers and product designs — “from Jigsaw Puzzles to Wine Labels,” she writes on her Web site.

With decades of practice to her credit, Jarrett says, “As you get older, you develop more confidence in being open to exploring different ideas and accepting when things do or don’t work. In my 20s, I would have been really nervous about that. But in my 50s, I feel like there is a huge amount of confidence and risk-taking in your artwork at an older age because you are less frightened of making mistakes, and I think that’s really freeing and quite liberating for a lot of artists as well. I don’t feel frightened anymore of trying different things. I say to myself, ‘It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work, just try it.’”

She listens to music for inspiration — Radiohead, Nils Frahm, Pink Floyd, Ólafur Arnalds, Aphex Twin and William Basinski, to name a few — and employs a variety of tools and source materials to realize her otherworldly creatures. She visits vintage fairs to look for old ephemera and often pairs her finds with her own photographic work. With such a focus on fairy tales, books are a huge draw.

“My mum was really creative with words. She was a writer,” Jarrett says. “So it’s her that inspired me to read a lot and to always be surrounded by books: picture books, story books, and that opened doors, really, to the idea of using your imagination, and we lived a kind of really idyllic childhood where we were just kind of lost in stories and books and going to see ballets or plays. We were surrounded by very creative opportunities. I’m really grateful particularly to Mum for that. She really instilled in us that there isn’t just this world; in your mind and in your imagination, there are all kinds of other worlds that exist.”

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THE RAINBOW

AL LOVER

by ABEL FOLGAR

Just one good listen to experimental producer Al Lover can trigger incurable record collection envy. WIth a drum machine, analog synths and live instrumentation, Los Angeles-based Lover distills the psychedelic energy of cult audio icons such as J-Dilla, Lee “Scratch” Perry and Brian Eno into a complex sound tapestry that compels attention — and maybe some inferiority at the sheer range being deployed.

“I started off making rap music in high school with friends and was always drawn to the beats using rock drums or loops,” Lover, who will perform at Bumblefest, tells PureHoney. “I was a skater and loved both hip-hop, punk, and harder-edged rap rock groups like M.O.P. who used heavy guitar riffs in their beats. When I started making beats, I just wanted to incorporate those elements.”

It wasn’t long before hearing prog, krautrock and proto metal led him to meddling with cult sacred cows such as “Safe as Milk“ by fellow Californian Captain Beefheart. That debut album from 1967 has “qualities that I loved in the composition, texture, and overall feel,” Lover says. Developed in the attic of his old San Francisco home in 2010, Lover’s “Safe as Milk Replica” is a reverent re-exploration — even if Lover truly wishes that he had, as he says, “tackled that project when I had the actual skill set to match the ambition.”

His most recent effort, 2022’s “Cosmic Joke,” draws on inspiration from thinkers and theologians. “I listen to more lectures, books on tape, podcasts than music at this point,” Lover says. “I think it started from wanting to find vocal samples and trying to somehow weave concepts into the music even if it’s just a mantra to myself when creating a track. Something that’s inspired me, a concept or whatever, it just becomes part of the music, even if it’s just for me subjectively.” At Bumblefest, Lover will pull double duty, playing live versions of his tracks and spinning his “World Party” DJ set, a deep dive into obscure world music from the ’70s and ’80s Bumblefest, with 40 acts on 5 stages, is Sept. 1 and 2 in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, al-lover.com

CHEW

by ABEL FOLGAR

“I’ve had an ongoing thought about a machine that records dreams,” Brett Reagan of CHEW tells PureHoney. “It would be weird if you could do that and wouldn’t fully translate. I think the result would be like recording something on VHS. The warbles, the static. Not a 1:1 facsimile, like trying to explain a dream to someone else. It doesn’t work quite right.”

Until that machine appears, Reagan has music to give dreams form. He and bandmate Sarah Wilson are bringing their guitar, drums and electronics manipulations to Bumblefest for what promises to be an experience of lysergic heaviness.

“A lot of our music comes from big explosions,” Reagan says. “When we have a break from touring, Sarah and I will head to our practice space and lock ourselves in there for days with a head full of acid. I’ll bring a lot of the electronic bits and guitar riffs that I have accumulated, and we will use all the sounds in the pallet and improvise.”

CHEW arrived with a triptych of recordings and intertwined artwork employing the Tarot deck’s Devil as a symbol of consumerism. Of the three releases — 2016’s “3D EP,” 2017’s “A Fine Accoutrement,” and 2020’s “Darque Tan” — the last really presaged what was to come: the electronic appliqués that would manifest in lockdown and wind up in more elaborated form on 2022’s “Horses.”

“There were a lot more electronics involved in creating these songs,” Reagan says of CHEW’s lastest full-length. “So we wanted to give them the attention that they needed. We didn’t want to pull them out of the oven too early.”

CHEW had primarily operated as a trio, but circumstances kept pulling bass players away. “I’m actually really enjoying the two-piece exploration,” Wilson tells PureHoney. “Brett and I know each other’s styles so well, so writing these new songs has been a breeze. We sound a little bit more electronic, but we still get heavy with it. More like how we started.”

Bumblefest is Sept. 1 and 2 with 40 acts on five stages in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, 3dchew.com

KAIROS CREATURE CLUB

by AMANDA MOORE

On blistering days when sun worship claims every inch of South Florida beach, the squinting through salted hazy air and the sunlight-induced retinal burn will eventually take their toll. You reach a limit; it’s time for refuge and relief. And like a good poolside evening hang, the indie-exotica conjurers of Kairos Creature Club are here to help. ”We want to put you in a trance and serve you cold waves of catharsis that transcend the lingering summer swelter that is Florida in September,” founding Club member Glenn Michael Van Dyke tells PureHoney ahead of the group playing Bumblefest

As refreshing as their new-wavey chill, Jacksonville, Florida’s Kairos Creature Club are ineffable notes of surf, lounge, pop, punk and more. Even Van Dyke can’t quite put a finger on what it is they do. ”It’s something different,” she ventures. If it’s a challenge to define this nontraditionalistic collective, it’s only because these groovy alt-rebel artists — the core duo of Van Dyke, also of Boytoy, and Lena Simon of La Luz — are living their art, and producing music as a self-expressive, authentic extension of their individual and conjoined creative evolutions.

Since our last encounter with them in early 2022, Kairos Creature Club have opened for Caroline Rose and, while on tour crossed off “some bucket list venues,” in their words, including Chicago’s Thalia Hall, the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles and The Fillmore in San Francisco. They played the fourth and fifth editions of the music festival they co-founded in Jacksonville, Winterland. They made another record, renovated their home studio, and designed a new visual element to accompany their live shows.

Van Dyke is tight-lipped on the setlist for Bumblefest and on confirmation or denial of any special guests. But, before she signed off, she left us daydreaming about the band’s upcoming visit: “We want to leave you utterly confused about what you just witnessed, yet with a certainty of desire to do it over and over again.” Bumblefest, with 40 acts on 5 stages, is September 1-2 in downtown West Palm Beach. bumblefest.com, kairoscreatureclub.com