BANYAN LIVE: Grin Cynic, SHIV, Afterimage CRAZY UNCLE MIKE’S: Tony Newton TNT Trio
3/28
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Sizzla
MIDS MARKET: The Getdown at SSOB Day1
GRAMPS: ULTRA SUNN, Bestial Mouths, Miss FD, DJ Dino
FILLMORE MIAMI: Draco Rosa
REVELRY: 180xSummer Emo Nite
ARTS GARAGE: Jimmy Vivino Band
CRAZY UNCLE MIKE’S: Jaded & Shake It Up
3/29
MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: We Are Family Roller Disco
BOYNTON BEACH: Spring Market w Paul Anthony & the Reggae Souljahs
511 BAR/LOUNGE: Light in the Dark Fest 2025 ft Maybird, Tewahedo, Steph Bruzon, Metromover, Kenny Moe, Jeremy Sousa, Daddy Lion (solo), Canalss, Steph Leyden, Solee Arts, The Expedition Collective Collage with Mad.E, Crystal Guerrieri, Renzo Del Castillo, Omavi Waite, Tina Klein-Baker, Veronica Abrams
REVELRY: Car Show, Skinny Jimmy, Smerks & the Nightmares
ARTS GARAGE: Ladies of Simone
CRAZY UNCLE MIKE’S: RF Factor
3/31
THE PEACH: Comedy Workshop, Open Mic, Drawing & Acrylics Class
4/11
RESPECTABLE STREET: PUREHONEY PRESENTS: SHANNON AND THE CLAMS, BEING DEAD ON SALE NOW! DON’T WAIT!
MUSTARD PLUG
by abel folgar
Pick it up, skank it out — dust off the pork pies and find that forgotten bottle of Plochman’s in the back of the fridge because 30-plus years later, the skapocalypse continues owing in no small part to the vinegary goodness of ska stalwarts Mustard Plug.
Formed by Dave Kirchgessner and Colin Clive in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1991, Mustard Plug stood out with energetic live performances and an upbeat sound that helped to propel ska’s third wave. Mustard Plug albums including Evildoers Beware! (1997) and Can’t Control It (2014) blended ska rhythms and catchy horn lines with punk rock energy, humorous lyrics, and a DIY ethos that has kept the band going.
“It really comes down to a sincere love of what we are doing,” Kirchgessner tells PureHoney. “We started the band because we both love ska music and wanted to make music that we enjoy. When we started, ska punk was pretty obscure. It gained a lot of popular attention and then lost it and then gained it back again. We just focus on what we like and ignore the rest.”
Decades later, a Midwest-bred, working-class attitude keeps Mustard Plug on the road, horn section and all. “It would be so much easier not to have horns,” Kirchgessner says, “but they are such an integral part of our sound, that we have to have them.” Their most recent effort, 2024’s Hey! EP, picks up where the band’s previous LP left off. “We came into the studio with more songs than we had time to record, and we had to cut four,” Kirchgessner says of the sessions for 2023’s Where Did All My Friends Go? “We felt that they were good songs, but “Take Me With You” was unfinished and “West Coast” just didn’t fit the vibe of the album.”
They’re joined for select dates by another unsinkable ska favorite, Washington, D.C.’s the Pietasters. “We love them and it’s been years since we toured with them,” Kirchgessner says, “so we’re really excited about it.”
Mustard Plug with the Pietasters and Flying Raccoon Suit perform 6pm, Saturday, March 22 at the Miami Beach Bandshell in Miami Beach.
KRAFTWERK
by olivia feldman
The German word “Gesamtkunstwerk” translates to “a total work of art” — which is how Kraftwerk are billing their upcoming “Multimedia Tour 2025 – 50 Years of Autobahn.” The Dusseldorf quartet is hitting 25 North American cities with a blend of music, visuals and performance art in honor of their landmark 1974 album.
Kraftwerk’s catalogue has influenced electronic music as a whole, but Autobahn was one of the earliest examples, gently introducing a synth-centered, avant-garde style of pop to an unsuspecting world. Founding band members Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider had moved away from their krautrock roots and expanded into a dynamic foursome, adding Wolfgang Flür on percussion and Klaus Roder on violin and guitar.
Inspired by the pleasures of tooling along on
Germany’s highways — the autobahns — the album is anchored by the 22-minute title track. It’s really more of an experience than a song; a road trip hymn, like a Beach Boys song turned robotic (the words “fahren, fahren, fahren” sound a lot like “Fun, Fun, Fun,” even if it just means “drive”). You can almost feel yourself in the backseat of your friend’s car, headphones in, the road humming beneath you. The vehicles in the next lane glide by, and your troubles are nonexistent. The song’s repetitive pulse puts the listener at ease. The song takes an eerie turn thanks to Hütter’s Minimoog, which mimics cars whizzing by and horns honking. The final section is a reprise of the first, bringing you back to that ease with another round of the catchy chorus.
With the release of Autobahn came success in the U.S., and a global musical imprint that would touch everyone from Devo to Donna Summer to Aphex Twin to Bjork. “Fifty years of Kraftwerk” doesn’t sound like a real phrase. How can electronic music have already been around this long? But here we are in 2025 with a sense that Kraftwerk aren’t just “still around” — in some respects they saw the future and got here first.
Kraftwerk plays 8pm Thursday, March 20 at Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center in Miami.
LIVE THEATRE & FILM
HIGHLIGHT
LA PLAZUELA
Spanish duo redefining the boundaries of Flamenco by blending the traditional genre with funk, pop, and electronic music.
Global Cuba Fest: Alain Pérez y La Orquesta KARD
Miami Beach
Youth Music Festival 2025
La Plazuela
Gusi: Solo Tuyo Tour
Moe with special guest Mihali
Florida Grand Opera
North Beach Social: Las Nubes
Giants of Jazz: Diego Figueiredo
Mustard Plug / The Pietasters with Special Guest Flying Raccoon Suit
Bailaora Soy
Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
Sizzla
We Are Family Roller Disco
Nakatani Gong Orchestra
SHANNON AND THE CLAMS
by liz tracy
Colored by Grief
After an unimaginable loss, Shannon Shaw is “alchemizing the pain.”
Band life is often a slog with long drives, takeaway meals, and unfamiliar venues. But on a recent tour in Australia, Shannon Shaw and her bandmates in the doowop-meets-garage act Shannon and the Clams found time on the road to pepper in a few outdoor adventures. “I don’t know if it’s just the sunshine, but the people are so exhilarated, and they have a lot of gratitude for you making the trek,” Shaw says about her trip Down Under. “And you feel that energy.”
Shannon and the Clams will soon headline a PureHoney show in another grateful, sunny, southern place when they perform on April 11 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach.
The trip to Australia was a much-needed reprieve for Shaw whose life has been colored by grief after an unimaginable loss in August of 2022. The singer and bassist was headed to her bachelorette party in Reno, Nevada, when she got a call from the sister of her fiancé Joe Haener. Haener, a 41-year-old drummer with longstanding ties to California’s Bay Area music scene, had been gravely injured in a car accident near his family’s farm in Oregon.
Shaw frantically reached out to all her support systems, including her therapist and astrologer, and even posted on Instagram, she says, “asking for people to send good vibrations and prayers.” And when she learned that Haener had not survived his injuries, she felt the need to update her followers. That’s when something unexpected happened: Telling her story online became therapeutic. “I opened the dam and just kept sharing,” Shaw says.
That vulnerability has been essential to the process of healing, and well worth any risks. The Internet, even with its dark corners and trolls, became a place where she could connect with others who had experienced immense loss. “I’m raw. All my skin has been rubbed off, is how it feels,” she says. And even strangers who felt the same way were generous in relating how they coped — things to do and what to avoid.
Her openness, in turn, gave others solace, too. “Finding that grief community, a widow community, I couldn’t have really done that keeping quiet and sticking with my friends — who are fucking amazing and who really showed up for me,” Shaw says. “But none of them have ever lost the love of their life the day of their bachelorette party, a couple of weeks before their wedding.”
Shaw, like Haener, got her musical start in the Bay Area, but the couple made their home in Oregon. After Haener’s death, Shaw relocated to Los Angeles. It was there she found a weekly grief group where she was headed after our interview.
SHANNON continued...
“I hate missing it,” she says of the regular meeting. “It’s my one day a week when I feel so seen. I don’t even have to talk. Everyone is in there because they are suffering the loss of someone.” Shaw compares it to coming home after a long day and taking off uncomfortable shoes, unbuttoning too-tight jeans. “Everyone gets it,” she says. In the grief group, she cries almost the whole time, “I don’t know where else I can do that, and it feels good,” she says, adding, “I want to cry with people who are on the same level.”
Haener’s absence guided the band’s next album, The Moon Is in the Wrong Place, released last May. Written by Shaw, guitarist Cody Blanchard, keyboard player Will Sprott and drummer Nate Mahan, the album was produced by longtime collaborator, Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. The title came from something Shaw’s fiancé had once said in conversation that enchanted her. “This record is the most important thing I’ve done in my life,” Shaw says.
The album has also struck a chord with fans. At shows, people know all the words and sing along with complicated songs. Shannon and the Clams are following it up with a deluxe vinyl bundle edition that Shaw describes as “a new opportunity to see the album differently.” It includes two songs — “Wax & String” and “I’m a Fool” — that were cut from the original album because they weren’t as directly related to its themes of loss. They’re tracks she loves, but for an album that she says was made with “intention and purpose,” editing them out in the first round was necessary. “Restraint is powerful,” she says. Her other band, Hunx and His Punx, likewise set aside work on an in-progress album after Haener’s death and have resumed recording with a different perspective on the songs.
Shaw remains industrious, creating work in more than one medium that reflects her new reality. “Putting the energy of this nightmare into anything creative is the best thing I can be doing,” she says, “Alchemizing the pain.”
Shaw and about 30 of her friends have a “Friendship Film Festival” for informally sharing movies they make on their mobile phones, and Shaw says her next project for the group will have higher production values and a premise she calls allegorical. Sick of being herself, Shaw one day discovers her AI doppelgänger dropped at her doorstop, and trains the double to replace her in daily life so the real Shannon Shaw can disappear.
She’s also writing a book about her love story with Haener and about her loss that will include her artwork as well as resources for those who are grieving. “I think it’s going to be like a survival guide,” she says. “It’s been very important to me to keep moving, keep processing, and lend hands wherever I can.”
Shaw knows there’s no hiding from the grief. She thinks of the future she and Haener planned together, children they might have had, a shared retirement in a cabin. “It’s going to keep unfolding,” she says. “It’s part of me for the rest of my life … and absolutely part of my art.”
PureHoney presents Shannon and the Clams and Being Dead, 8pm Friday, April 11 at Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. shannonandtheclams.com
INHALER
by tim moffatt
Some bands hit the ground running, based on luck, charisma, artistry, or connections, or they happen to be in the right place at the right time. Inhaler certainly had a connection, but as constituted in 2012 took a few years to really become the group they are today. In early years they called themselves Collapsible Chairs, with the members — lads from Dublin, Ireland, all 12 or 13 years old — bonding over a love of Nirvana and Arctic Monkeys, who they would later tour with.
When the original singer stepped down, guitarist Elijah Hewson (more on him in a moment) assumed vocal duties full-time, with bassist Robert Keating, guitarist Josh Bartholomew Jenkinson, and drummer Ryan McMahon solidifying the sound and initially adopting the name The Inhalers, in honor of Hewson’s asthma medicine. Still in their teens, they honed their craft by audibly imbibing Stone Roses, New Order, Joy Division, Happy Mondays, Depeche Mode, Echo & the Bunnymen, Talking Heads, Oasis and The Strokes. The band listened for nuance, finding the tones and crafting the tunes that would help them stand out among other bands from the Emerald Isle and the UK.
Inhaler released several singles that helped elevate their sound and bring them the attention that every fledgling band needs to launch. It worked; they spent 2019 opening for Noel Gallagher’s High-Flying Birds and recorded a self-titled debut EP that notched several charting singles. They have since released three albums: It Won’t Always Be Like This in 2021, Cuts & Bruises in 2023, and the brand new Open Wide.
It doesn’t hurt that Hewson is the son of Bono, famous for his love of righteous causes (and for singing for Irish rock group U2). However, it should be noted that U2’s first two records, Boy and October, originally premiered on the UK Album charts at number 52 and number 11. Inhaler stormed the charts in 2021 at number 1 and 2023 at number 2. With Open Wide garnering praise ahead of an international tour, perhaps we should refer to Bono as Elijah Hewson’s dad in the future.
Inhaler and the Benches play 6:30pm Friday, March 14 at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale. inhaler.band
SUNDAZE FEST
by abel folgar
The region’s geographic middle child, Broward County is “the natural place for all the counties to connect,” says Kelcie McQuaid, who will test this theory of prime location when the inaugural Sundaze Music & Arts Festival kicks off at Revelry nightclub and lounge in Pompano Beach — a city at almost the exact midpoint between Miami and West Palm Beach.
McQuaid, founder of the arts-minded ShangriLa Collective, is a central figure in her own right: Her group has collaborated with more than 500 artists across the region, fostering a close-knit network of creatives that prides tangible relationships and organic support. Picking Revelry to host wasn’t just about geography: Owners Brando Garcia and Zena Tarantino are longtime friends of McQuaid.
“They’re awesome people and artists in their own right as well,” McQuaid tells PureHoney “They’ve poured a lot of love into this space, and it shows. It feels comfy and delightful, exciting, and still very chill. They bring old friends and new ones together in a very thoughtful way.”
Sundaze will feature local punk rock favorites The Shakers and shoegaze-y power popsters the Nervous Monks with sets by DJ Nat Smallish. Artists Liv Cook, Cary Daly, CHNK Fondue and Nicole Galluccio will show their work. “Liv Cook is a fresh face with talent of epic proportion,” notes McQuaid. “And Cary Daly’s art is technically some of the most proficient you can find, but there’s wit and humor to it.”
The festival will also feature a pop-up market organized by Pop$wap, led by Kristin Seese The evening will conclude with a screening of “My Blue Heaven,” a nod to Seese’s favorite film, curated by Dead Media Society.
“My hope is for everyone to get together and contribute what they’re good at, that’s always been the goal, meet in the middle,” said McQuaid. “Collaborate. Power in numbers, kumbaya, and such. I guess all it takes is for people to do their parts and show up.”
Sundaze Music & Arts Festival, presented by ShangriLa Collective, Pop$wap, Connect Records, Dead Media Society and PureHoney, 5pm Sunday, March 23 at Revelry in Pompano Beach.
LEWIS ROSSIGNOL
by kelli bodle
The PureHoney featured artist of the month, Lewis Rossignol, lives in a small city in his longtime home state of Maine. But unlike, say, that extremely famous local who writes horror novels set in fictional Maine towns, Rossignol doesn’t view his surroundings as key. “Honestly I don’t think Maine has influenced my style very much,” Rossignol says in an email interview, “because everybody is so connected online I feel like most of my influences come from pop culture and things outside of my immediate bubble.”
It was online, for example, that hip-hop star Tyler the Creator found Rossignol and, with some persistent DMing over months (“insane … bro I really like ur stuff … lmfao i want to commission art but I guess you don’t take hints haha … ”), recruited him, as Rossignol explained in a TikTok reel. The result was the jarring, splatter-faced, portrait-of-theartist cover image for Tyler’s Grammy-winning 2019 album, Igor.
Despite the instant clout gained from pairing up with one of hip-hop’s most celebrated performers, Rossignol hasn’t fled Maine for an art capital. People come to him on TikTok or Instagram, where hundreds of thousands of people follow his offbeat posts, how-to reels, and images rendered in a sometimes polarizing childlike scrawl. As one Instagrammer wrote, in a comment Rossignol highlighted for a reel, “How are his drawings absolutely horrible but awesome at the same time?I?!?”
“It’s a balancing act,” Rossignol replied. Gen Xers will particularly enjoy his pop culture references, with standard bearers like The Big Lebowski, David Lynch, and Sesame Street all recently memorialized by his squiggly touch on Instagram. While he does have an impressive client list ranging from HBO to fellow Mainer Drew Taggart from The Chainsmokers, Rossignol emphasizes that his almost daily Instagram artwork is uncommissioned and for the enjoyment of his followers,
Once you know something else about Rossignol, that he has the motor disorder Tourette Syndrome, his output and his technique make a kind of sense. Rossignol says that drawing calms his symptoms, and you can almost see the therapeutic element in his work. By building up successive levels of jagged colored pencil markings, Rossignol is able to call decipherable figures out of the pigmented chaos.
“I wouldn’t say I embraced it,” he says of having Tourette’s. “I just didn’t let it slow me down. And creating art does seem to help my tics for periods, which is relieving.”
Asked about exhibitions, Rossignol says there aren’t any in the offing. “I’m asked a lot to exhibit my work but I generally turn it down because I don’t love going to openings and feeling exposed and judged,” he says. “For me It’s easier to sell art online, and let internet trolls judge my work all they want.”
Rossignol was born in New Hampshire and got a degree in illustration from Maine College of Art & Design in Portland. Describing how he approaches portraiture, he says, “I generally draw their face first and then fit other complimentary details around them with what room is left over, so often times that space dictates what I can add. Sometimes the added details don’t even necessarily go with the person, I just added something that I thought was visually appealing.”
Music is an inspiration for him as well as a source of subject matter and soundtracking for his social media clips. His rejoinder to one online detractor was a reel of him drawing Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson to the strains of “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” a traditional folk song recorded by Cash.
“I really like Stephen Wilson Jr.’s new album Søn of Dad,” Rossignol says. “I also have been listening to Myles Bullen, Mos Def, and Will Varley a lot. My musical taste is all over the place, from George Jones to the New York Dolls.” He continues to do music commissions, noting, “I have some experimental rap albums that I’ve done the cover work for that will be released soon.”
If there’s a philosophy behind the work, it’s a straightforward one. “I just love creating and don’t take anything I do too seriously,” Rossignol says. “I try to bring an upbeat and humorous vibe to my art.”
