Hey you! It’s time to start thinking about the second annual swede fest, boasting the ever-so-original name of SWEDE FEST 2 PALM BEACH. Feeling all Fellini? Submit an entry until 11:59 PM on Tuesday, July 9, 2013. Not so much? Then come watch the swedes at the festival on Saturday, July 27, 2013 at The Borland Center for Performing Arts, located on Mainstreet at Midtown in Palm Beach Gardens.

But wait, you cry! What are the rules? The fees? Who’s in charge? Why is this happening?

We’ll start at the beginning.

First, there was a little cinematic gem called Be Kind, Rewind. It starred Jack Black and Mos Def. It was kinda ho-hum, but it contained the seeds that would grow into a cult phenomenon. Yes, this film is responsible for the existence of the swede (n. laughably bad remake of a Hollywood film, so named because it sounds European and nouvelle vague). It is therefore like a grandparent to the swede fest.

Lest you think SWEDE FEST 2 PALM BEACH is nothing more than an amateur free-for-all, they have RULES and SUBMISSION GUIDELINES on their website at www.swedefestpalmbeach.com. Email us ASAP to reserve your film, because they only want one of everything. Once you call dibs on your movie, start calling in favors, because you’ll need a cast and a location — even if that turns out to be you, your BF, and your dog in the backyard. A little planning never hurt.

Keep your swede under 3 minutes. Embrace its amateur nature. The bigger the original film’s budget and the less you spend on your swede equal comedy gold. Make it the equivalent of PG-13, even if you’re sweding Pulp Fiction. Work creatively around cussing, nekkidness, and other grown-up stuff since the festival is open to all ages.

It’s free to enter a film in SWEDE FEST 2 PALM BEACH. Tickets to the festival are $5 in advance online, and $6 at the door. But if you enter a film, you receive two free tickets. Tempting, no? Plus, the audience votes for its favorite swede and they award a prize. And it won’t be a tour of Digital Domain’s studios. Sorry about that, last year’s winners!

This little shindig is brought to you by Mainstreet at Midtown, which is much cooler that you thought. Need more info? Call 561.282.4623 or email info@swedefestpalmbeach.com.

Swede Fest 2 Palm Beach

KENNY RICHES talks MUST COME DOWN

Something is happening in Miami - aside from the buying up of South Florida real estate by Canadians, Brazilians and Europeans. Or the enormous success of art ventures like Art Basel and the New World Symphony. Young people are not leaving for greener metaphorical pastures, not only that, talent is moving here. In the past four years, the tides have somehow shifted and in the sleepy, backwards South Florida, we began to talk and beget start-ups, art house theaters, coffee shops, festivals, collectives, small businesses, may be even bigger businesses. It makes sense. One of our favorite examples of changing moors, is independent filmmaker Kenny Riches, who grew up in Utah but forsake Sundance,

Slamdance and the majestic mountains to participate in the wild Miami ride. He is about to screen his feature Must Come Down at the Locally Grown film series, a collaboration of Indie Film Club Miami and Soho Beach House. DA: How would you describe MCD? Riches: It is about a guy in his late-twenties who is struggling with what he should be doing with his life. He returns to the town he grew up in to break into his childhood home in search of some adventure. Along the way he meets a girl in her early-twenties who is in a similar point in life. They form a strong bond and do some childish stuff together.

DA: Is this your first feature? Riches: This is my first feature film. I studied art and didn’t go to film school, but instead spent time visiting my friend on large sets and then I started making short films, so I had a lot to learn. I entered this production with a lot of ideas of how I wanted the film to look, but ultimately was stretched so thin that I had to sacrifice a lot of visuals.

Must Come Down screens at Soho Beach House with Kenny Riches in attendance on Monday, June 24 at 6:30pm as a part of the Locally Grown monthly series. Curated by IndieFilmClubMiami.com. For full interview: Tropicult.com ~ DIliana Alexander for Tropicult

Locally Grown Cinema

If-- as the old nursery rhyme goes-- an old woman can live in a shoe, then Kevin and David Barnes would have grown up in a kaleidoscope. Considering the ever-shifting moods, dynamics and genre-bending that loosely define Of Montreal’s phantasmagoric sound and album covers, one imagines the Barnes brothers having popped forth from a world defined by a limitless combination of shapes and colors. Kevin, the 39-year-old elder brother, is the musical mastermind behind Of Montreal. David, three years his younger, has had a hand in designing the band’s album art from the start, with 1997’s Cherry Peel. (See this months poster and cover of PureHoney!)

To hear the younger Barnes explain it, stimulation was key to the younger versions of themselves. “At a very young age it was lots of sports and cartoons and acting out both in our yard and in the woods,” he writes via email. “Our parents kept us in a state of constant dampness. Wet sweatsuits served as our school uniform as we learned to be men acting out the feats of our heroes. When we were good we would get the hose. When we were bad our sweatsuits were allowed to dry and we were put out to pasture. And we would turn to dust.”

And there lies the rather surrealist humor that defines both these artists. On stage, the elder Barnes appears in flamboyant outfits and makeup that appears hastily wrought. His public persona seems as

slapped together and shifting as his band’s music, which began as a solo project with a name dedicated to a young woman from Montreal he once loved but spurned him. The music is a celebration of possibilities and the unfinished but also the vibrant and alive.

Barnes the musician would probably delight to comparisons to David Bowie, but the world explored by Of Montreal is far more earthbound than the elusive icon-shifting alien person of Bowie. If ever a glitter philosopher existed, it would be Kevin Barnes. He throws around names like the French intellectual George Bataille (“The Past is a Grotesque Animal”) and the French surrealist Paul Éluard (“An Eluardian Instance”) while also bringing them down to earth in references to his elusive, mysterious attraction to love and relationships that’s both humorous and tragic.

Though passion and sex often appear as themes in Of Montreal’s lyrics, there are also statements of living life (and sometimes death) to the fullest. There are cautionary tales, as well. In “I Was Never Young,” he sings: “You have a mind full of a wonderment I’ll never find/cause I was never young.” Then there’s the prayer/warning that closes the band’s overwhelming 2010 masterpiece album False Priest: “If you think God is more important/Than your neighbor/You’re capable of terrible evil.”

As wide-ranging as Of Montreal’s lyrics are, complimenting those themes is a downright schizophrenic sort of music. The band formed in Athens, Georgia at a time when the indie scene started to embrace its roots in 1960s pop, particularly the Beach Boys (and especially a then still only-bootlegged Pet Sounds sessions album) but also the Beatles in their psychedelic phase.

Of Montreal’s psychedelic indie pop sound matured most impressively to include disco and funk elements in its middle period. Prince comes to mind. False Priest featured contributions by Janelle Monáe and Solange Knowles that cannot be relegated to only soulful, but a mélange that defines Of Montreal’s hyper-kinetic, neo-progressive sound.

Sealing it all up is a package worth the purchase on vinyl for the younger Barnes’ artwork. The covers have evolved alongside the music, growing more intricate as the years went on. Early albums recall the colorful psychedelic art of Peter Max but later grew busier with more characters and then creatures that look like the work of Hieronymus Bosch. They also evolved with input from the elder Barnes’ wife, who also plays in the band, Nina Barnes. “The music inspires the art but the art never ever, ever inspires the music,” notes the younger Barnes. “Kevin takes a very hardline with that.”

To hear the younger Barnes explain it, he had little choice to work with his elder brother. He says he began designing the albums after “hanging upside down out a 63rd story window by one of Kevin’s goons.”

If his responses to the working relationship seem comical they also speak to the power of a close sibling bond of love and hate. He offers one more allegory to explain his creative relationship with his elder brother: “Imagine an old man who wants to spend his time feeding pigeons old bread, and then there is a pigeon and all he wants to do is be fed old bread. That’s a perfect pairing, and they could stay in a loop forever, and it would be heaven. But maybe it would be an even better heaven if the man stayed at home and ate the bread, and the pigeon ate worms. I think that uncertainty is something that keeps both of us interested.”

Pick up a copy of David’s book titled What’s Weird? It features over 100 personally selected paintings, sketches and doodles accompanied by commentary. ~Hans Morgenstern | The Independent Ethos

Wet Sweatsuits Loop Forever

Kevin Barnes

David Barnes

Monday, July 8 Spred the Dub @ Longboard’sKaraoke hosted by Chris Martin @ PropagandaRythmation & Lance-O @ Boston’sTuesday, July 9 DJ HiGrade @ PropagandaOpen Mic @ DadaWednesday, July 10 Heavy Pets Light @ DadaJolt Radio DJ’s, 50 Cent Wings @ Wood TavernThursday, July 11 Rebel @ Respectable Street SSK, Stop the Presses, & Night Gaunts @ Play by PlayDJ HiGrade @ PropagandaCraft Bazaar @ DadaBrendan O’Hara, DJ Yancy @ Blackbird OrdinaryFriday, July 12 Jason T Band, Local Contraband, The She Said Whats @ Swampgrass WillysEverymen, Howling Winds, Nervous Attachments & Keith Welsh @ PropagandaC’est What @ Funky Buddha LoungeSaturday, July 13 Reckless Dames: Alice @ Respectable Street Air Supply @ The Fillmore Miami BeachDamon Fowler Group @ Bamboo RoomEric Biddines Album Release @ PropagandaHowling Winds, Lost Love, Matt Garamy @ The PoorhouseFrancis, Rescue Kids, The Gallery, Two Way Tie @ Swampgrass WillysThe Short Straw Pickers Album Release, Uproot Hootenanny, Fat Mannequin @ Funky BiscuitJuly 13 Gouge Away, Native Graves, Ether, Vices, Nunhex, Sleep Patterns, Tetragrammaton, Burn Them at the Stakes, Shatter @ Limitless StudiosSunday, July 14Summer Daze Concert Series #2: The Supervillains, Authority Zero, Ballyhoo!, The Hard Richards, The Shakers, Bushwood, Stop the Presses, Fireside Prophets, Unit Six, The Ruins, Speaking Volumes, Versus the World, Ferocious Stones, Rude Hecklers, Operative Me @ J Street Lake Worth and Propaganda RX Bandits, Northern Faces @ Culture RoomLa Vela Puerca, Catupecu Machu @ Grand CentralThomas Wynn & The Believers @ Bamboo RoomInnaSense & Lance-O & Kulcha Shok Krew @ JazidMonday, July 15Spred the Dub @ Longboard’sRachel Andes @ DadaKaraoke hosted by Chris Martin @ PropagandaRythmation & Lance-O @ Boston’sTuesday, July 16Suns of the Morning Star,They Eat Their Own God, Worlds Strongest Man @ Limitless AgencyDJ HiGrade @ PropagandaOpen Mic @ DadaWednesday, July 17Casey Hopkins Duo, Grizzly Atoms @ PropagandaJolt Radio DJ’s, 50 Cent Wings @ Wood TavernThursday, July 18Gringo Star @ Respectable Street The People Upstairs @ PropagandaEvan Rowe Album Release @ Dada

Monday, July 1 Spred the Dub @ Longboard’sKaraoke hosted by Chris Martin @ PropagandaRhythmnation, Lance-O @ Boston’sAlesana, The Color Morale, Upon this Dawning, Lions Lions, Megosh @ Culture RoomMedia Blitz, Ironside, Beastplague, Tetragrammaton, Gouge Away, Borderline, Solus, Life Rot @ Talent FarmTuesday, July 2 DJ HiGrade @ PropagandaPoetry Slam @ DadaWednesday, July 3R3hab, David Solano, Renegades of Funk, Jose Estrada, Shalomar, Dillon Harris, Miami Beat Wave, Jason Daniel, Monstars on Broadway @ Revolution LiveStop the Presses, Hunter Green @ Tobacco RoadE Hippies, Tinnitusstimulus, Burak w/ Rat Bastard, Sharlyn Evertsz, Samara, Metairi @ Spring BreakHomeroom @ PropagandaJolt Radio DJ’s, 50 Cent Wings @ Wood TavernThursday, July 4Audio Junkie Independence Day Bash: Rat Bastard, Mr.Entertainment, Shark Vally Sisters, Las Tias, Pocket of Lollipops, The Cost, The Astrokats, Body Garden, Zibtebra, MÖTHERSKY, Testokra, Haochi Waves, The Gun Hoes, Jackie Ransom, The Jellyfish Brothers, Sharlyn Evertsz, Mr. Clit and the Pink Cigarettes, Death Fuk, Human Fluid Rot, Orbweaver, The Tunnel, Dim Past, Dyslexic Postcards @ GrampsFlaunt’s Annual Redneck Rumble ‘Murrica Edition w. Gravel Kings @ Respectable Street Suns of the Morning Star, Manifest Test Subject, Mr. Martino @ The Supercon Music FestivalCoon Doggin Outlaws, Jangle Leg OMB @ MickeysEagle Chief, DJ Contra @ Blackbird OrdinaryCaspa, Kill Paris, Antiserum, Mayhem @ Grand CentralMorning Fatty, Rundowntown, The Casey Hopkins Duo @ PropagandaMagician Daniel Fishman @ DadaAmerica’s Birthday Bash @ Bayfront ParkFriday, July 5Big Time Rush @ Cruzan AmpKrewella, Excision, $uper Genius, Merlyn @ Revolution LiveSmells Like Grunge @ The Speakeasy LoungeOf Montreal, Yip Deceiver, Afrobeta (DJ Set) @ Grand CentralPremium Buzz @ Swampgrass WillysSmiley Tunehead @ Bamboo RoomGhost Owl, Freq @ Funky BiscuitRachel Andes Band @ DadaJacob Jeffries Band @ Funky Buddha LoungeBrendan O’Hara, DJ Yancy @ Blackbird OrdinaryCyst, Ancient Albatros, Sons of the Morning Star & Atomic @ PropagandaSaturday, July 6Jacques Lu Cont, Proxy @ Grand CentralThe Violet West, People @ The PoorhouseEric Culberson Band @ Bamboo RoomMorning Fatty, Bushwood @ Funky Buddha LoungeFunx @ DadaOutlaw Tendencies, Absolute Asylum, Distortion 7 @ Swampgrass WillysRite to Bare Arms, False Tides and Archetypes @ PropagandaSunday, July 7Stop the Presses, Manifest Test Subject, Mr. Martino @ The Supercon Music FestivalJahfe & Lance-O & Kulcha Shok Krew @ Jazid

Friday, July 19Dave Matthew’s Band, Blind Pilot @ Cruzan AmpThe Bad Notes @ Swampgrass WillysSilvestre Dangond @ The Fillmore Miami BeachBlues Dragon @ Bamboo RoomPacific Dub @ Culture RoomIke Stubblefield @ Funky BiscuitKonkrete Jungle @ PropagandaAmore Delirium @ DadaHeidi & the El Cats @ Funky Buddha LoungeBrendan O’Hara, DJ Yancy @ Blackbird OrdinaryLaramie Dean, Pool Party, Skinny Jimmy & the Stingrays, Hardship Anchors, Sandrats @ Churchill’s PubSaturday, July 20Beach Day, Bonnie Riot, The Goddamn Hustle & The Old Fashioned @ PropagandaDave Matthew’s Band, Blind Pilot @ Cruzan AmpMidnite, I-Wayne, Droop Lion, Johnny Dolla, Redemption, Jesse Jendah, ArmyGideon, Mixed Culture, Weedamiah @ Revolution LiveShimmie Shake Revue with Laramie Dean @ MickeysKingdoms & Crowns, Grace Kimmel, Mandy Moon @ Funky Buddha LoungeThe Riot Act @ Dubliner FtLJason Cardinal @ DadaStop the Presses, High Chiefs @ Jakes TavernReal Monsters, Future Dinosaur @ Swampgrass WillysDebbie Davie @ Bamboo RoomJon Cleary @ Funky BiscuitSunday, July 21311, Sublime w. Rome, Cypress Hill, Pennywise, G. Love @ Cruzan AmphitheatreMarilyn Manson @ The FillmoreJahfe & Lance-O & Kulcha Shok Krew @ JazidMonday, July 22Spred the Dub @ Longboard’sRythmation & Lance-O @ Boston’sBilly Iuso @ Funky BiscuitKaraoke hosted by Chris Martin @ PropagandaTuesday, July 23DJ HiGrade @ PropagandaOpen Mic @ DadaThe Saturday Giant @ Funky Buddha LoungeWednesday, July 24Homeroom @ PropagandaHeavy Pets Light @ DadaJolt Radio DJ’s, 50 Cent Wings @ Wood TavernThursday, July 25Ex Norwegian @ Respectable StreetDJ HiGrade @ PropagandaSaturday Giant @ DadaRundowntown, Todd Clouser & the Love Electric @ Funky Buddha LoungeFriday, July 26Monty Warren Stones Tribute, Smells Like Grunge Nirvana Tribute, Sleep Recital @ Swampgrass WillysGallimimus, Smith Sunday @ The PoorhouseNew York Dolls Tribute Show: Charlie Pickett and Barry Apfel, Jolly Badfellow, The Riot Act, The Riot Agents, Sharkvalley Sisters @ MickeysFunkabilly Playboys @ Bamboo RoomToad the Wet Sprocket @ Culture RoomBrendan O’Hara, DJ Yancy @ Blackbird OrdinaryDJ Needlez presents Rock The Mic @ PropagandaOceanstone, Redemption @ Funky Buddha LoungeSaturday, July 27Swede Fest 2 Palm Beach @ The Borland Center for Performing Arts at Midtown

Vans Warped Tour @ Cruzan AmphitheatreThe Psychedelic Furs @ Culture RoomSuns of the Morning Star, Sorus @ Solid Sound Studio1 Hit Left, Adage @ Swampgrass WillysDharmata @ PropagandaElectric Piquete @ Funky Buddha LoungeJP Soars & The Red Hots @ Bamboo RoomBrock Butler, Sea & Space @ Funky BiscuitSunday, July 28Summer Daze Concert Series #3: Stick Figure, Passafire, The Heavy Pets, Roots Shakedown, Spred the Dub, Franscene, Living Strange, South Side Dub, Funky Nuggets, Moska Project, Fresh Catch, Making Faces, Treehouse!, Sun Dried Vibes @ J Street Lake Worth and Propaganda InnaSense & Lance-O & Kulcha Shok Krew @ JazidLuciano, Everton Blender, Leroy Sibbles, Code Red Band, Fire T, Adonai, Nighthawk and Lance-O @ Meyer AmpRachel Andes @ DadaMonday, July 29Spred the Dub @ Longboard’sKaraoke hosted by Chris Martin @ PropagandaRythmation & Lance-O @ Boston’sTuesday, July 30DJ HiGrade @ PropagandaOpen Mic @ DadaWednesday, July 31Black Sabbath @ Cruzan AmphitheatreFilmstrip @ PropagandaJolt Radio DJ’s, 50 Cent Wings @ Wood TavernThursday, August 1Filmstrip @ Respectable Street Metric @ The Fillmore Miami Beach

Friday, August 2South Side Dub, Fireside Prophets @ Funky Buddha LoungeSaturday, August 3The Tattooed Canvas Art Show @ Ink & Pistons TattooMad Decent Block Party, Major Lazer, Zeds Dead, Flosstradamus, Big Gigantic, Riff Raff, Kito & Reija Lee, HeroBust, DZA, Robb Bank$ @ Revolution LiveSunday, August 4Jahfe & Lance-O & Kulcha Shok Krew @ JazidMonday, August 5Spred the Dub @ Longboard’sRythmation & Lance-O @ Boston’sThursday, August 8Mike Mineo @ Respectable Street Adam Ant, Prima Donna @ Grand Central

Friday, August 9Glamour Goddesses @ DadaScott Marischen Jazz Quartet @ Funky Buddha LoungeSunday, August 11InnaSense & Lance-O & Kulcha Shok Krew @ JazidMonday, August 12Spred the Dub @ Longboard’sRythmation & Lance-O @ Boston’sTuesday, August 13The Cult, White Hills @ Revolution LiveWednesday, August 14Icona Pop, K. Flay, Sirah @ Grand CentralThursday, August 15Wake Up @ Respectable Street

Phil Cogley’s music video for his song “When Death Comes” is a lot of Phil Cogley. There’s Phil, bespectacled and funereally dressed with short-cropped dark hair, stepping up to the keyboard to sing. There’s Phil, to his right, strumming a guitar; and two more Phils, to his left, drumming and rocking a bass. Cogley, the Columbus, Ohio wunderkind who performs under the stage name The Saturday Giant, has not cloned

himself for this clever special effect, but he might as well have. The Saturday Giant is a one-man-band, and Cogley writes everything, plays everything, arranges everything and performs it all live, switching from guitar and bass to keyboards when appropriate. And did I mention he beatboxes? “I’m pretty much a four- or five-piece band distilled into one person,” he says.

Cogley isn’t antisocial or narcissistic, but he is a perfectionist, and when the band he initially formed didn’t adhere to the vision he was looking for, he decided to do it all himself. “The way I write is I’ll usually begin with a melody or a texture I like, or a chord progression,” he says. “I’ll go down to the basement, where I rehearse, and start a loop of that texture and melody and start experimenting with what I guess you’d call the different colors in my palette. One advantage I have is that since it’s only my aesthetic sense to worry about, I don’t have to worry about hurting anybody’s feelings. In a conventional rock band, you’ve got four different egos and perspectives, so there a butting off heads.”

The formula is working for him: After a 2010 debut called You’ve Heard of Dragons? that suggests an overwhelming debt to Radiohead, the Saturday Giants’ two follow-ups – 2011’s politically driven “Freedom of Choice” single and last year’s “When Death Comes” EP – sound like an artist who’s come into his own. Cogley’s Ben Gibbardesque falsetto sings and raps over his intricate melodies, which call to mind Philip Glass in their foundational repetitions and dense layering. If Philip Glass made indie-pop music, that is.

Cogley will perform – all four of him – $5 at the Funky Buddha Lounge in Boca Raton at 8pm, July 23 and FREE at Dada in Delray Beach at 8pm July 25. Visit thesaturdaygiant.com. ~ John Thomason

He Might Be Giant

311 is back on the road this summer as they are every year spreading funky hard rock jams all across the country as the summer sunsets grace the sky. Lead vocalist Nick Hexum joined The Sound to talk about what’s on the horizon for the band.

YAGER: Have you guys written any new songs since Universal Pulse? HEXUM: I think everybody is always

kicking around a few ideas. Things just kind of drop out of the sky even if I have to sick it into my voicemail or use the recorder on my iPhone. I bring a little studio with me so I’ve been flushing out some demos. I know that me and SA are both working on some side projects, some extracurricular stuff, so the juices are always flowing.

YAGER: When we spoke to P-Nut last year he mentioned you guys might start putting out songs AS they’re written/recorded, one at a time, what do you think about that idea now that music has gone mostly digital? HEXUM: We’ve been kicking around ideas for a long time like a subscription service or maybe a song of the month club. It’s really had to say what would be best. The old fashion album cycle works fine but we decided we were going to do a shorter album so we could not have to take such a long break. When we recorded Uplifter we recorded over 20 songs for it and that’s part of the reason it took years in the making because you want to make sure that its fresh. People always say I wonder where you guys are going to next musically and say me too, I’m kind of excited to see what the group consciousness is going to come up with.

YAGER: All these nice weather places keep getting the big 311 events! When is NYC going to get a 311 blow-out party to make us forget about the fact that for some reason we choose to reside in place with miserable temperatures for ½ the year? HEXUM: I don’t think people hate their lives that much at a time but I definitely hear what you’re saying. I appreciate you mentioning the cruise because the new boat we got for next year’s cruise is really really cool. It’s going to be the best cruise yet next March. I’m really excited about that. We just started having internal discussions about how were going to do different stuff, shows on the beach and stuff like that. We’re going to make it the best cruise yet, it’s the third one. I think it’s important that people need vacations and combining music with a destination that makes a once in a lifetime thing. You have the shows where the band comes to where you live but part of the fun is going down to Miami and getting on a boat.

YAGER: You guys have had so many great singles over the years and you just keep churning them out, but were there any songs that you regret not turning into a single? HEXUM: Yeah, I pushed to have Champagne be a follow up single after the success of Amber because it was a similar sound but more up-tempo and I really loved the lyrics. I thought that was a hit that never happened but I couldn’t convince the record company and to do it and I’m probably still pissed off to this day about it. (laughs)

YAGER: Fans love your behind the scenes DVDs like Enlarged to Show Detail, any thoughts of putting out another one? HEXUM: Yea, we keep kicking that around. What we end up usually doing is putting together 10-15-minute behind the scenes shorts, like trailers. There is a really cool Pow Pow overview on our website that shows all the craziness behind the scenes, the people camping, jumping into the lake and the show itself. I think because everything has changed and people aren’t really going out and buying DVDs anymore we just put up shorter versions online for free but maybe one day we will put out another Enlarged to Show Detail, who knows. ~ Scott Yager The Sound Magazine

Nick Hexum Horizons

Passafire may have gotten their big break after meeting Pepper, but don’t throw them into the “white boy reggae” bucket quite so quickly. The four-piece band out of Savannah, GA want their sound to evolve. Passafire has been keeping plenty busy on the road and has even found the time to start putting together a new album. It promises to feature an fresh and upgraded sound; another sign that they are perpetually growing since their inception

in 2003.

Drummer Nick Kubley told us that their early days in Savannah helped build the Passafire we know today. “In the beginning before we found our sound, we did a lot of jamming, so initially we sort of fell under that umbrella. I don’t know if the scene built our sound or just tolerated us while we were trying to figure it out!”

Long time Passafire fans will still hear the what they fell in love with on the new record, just with a small twist. “We still have the heavy reggae influence,” Nick said, “but this time around, we didn’t get hung up on making sure every song had reggae parts in it.” The years of touring have built a strong band foundation and now the boys are proud to say that they produce their best work when they are surrounded by each other. “Last [record], we were emailing ideas back and forth and figuring it all out when everyone was in town. This time, we were able to write songs from beginning to end as a group in the same room. I can’t wait for people to hear it. ”

Although Passafire gains momentum with every kick ass live show they play in every corner of the country, they still site a 2007 tour with Pepper as a breakthrough moment. Said Nick, “We definitely owe a lot to the guys in Pepper. Things started to fall into place after that run.”

Next up for the band is a highly anticipated headlining slot at Propaganda’s blazing Summer Daze Concert Series. Still considering whether or not this is a show worth coming out for? Nick puts your worries to bed. “Our live show is where we shine, and musically we have something for everybody. Plus, our Florida shows are always a good time!”

Passafire will be playing Summer Daze Day 3, July 28th at Propaganda, 6 South J Street Downtown Lake Worth. www.passafiretheband.com ~ Dana Krangel

Passafire, Fresh Daze

Don’t let the name fool you. The Supervillains aren’t a group of Disney bad guys, they are a band with super stage powers. Hailing from Orlando, the guys of The Supervillains loved growing up in Florida and getting to see a wide variety of cultures clash together. Scott Suldo, a.k.a. Skart, on guitar

and vocals told us the Florida scene “definitely rubbed off in our music, which stylistically is all over the place with a lot of different influences. Beach life, swamp life, tanned bodies, tattoos, canned beer, reggae, ska, punk rock – It all kind of comes out in our music and the people have been behind us in force for 15 years now.”

Longtime band buddies Pepper gave Supervillains a big push back in 2006 when they signed them to their label, Law Records. Being a part of a tight knit label with lots of touring with like-minded artists inspired The Supervillains. Skart said “It helped catapult us to a headlining role and eventually we got to open our own label Rah Rah Rah Records, where we get to return the favor and sign bands we like and bring them on tour with us!” Can’t you just hear “The Circle of Life” Lion King chant?

South Florida fans are fortunate enough to get a face full of The Supervillains when they come down to tear up the stage on day two of Summer Daze Concert Series, July 14.

A fan of live music, Florida grooves, and generally having a good time, we couldn’t help but ask Skart what he would say to someone who hasn’t decided to get their butts to Summer Daze yet. “If you haven’t made up your mind yet about going to Summer Daze then you shouldn’t need much more coaxing! National headliners Authority Zero, Ballyhoo!, and a GRIP of top-notch FLA talent all in one spot with an Olympic size swimming pool to cool off in and float around with a frosty beverage all day! Scantily clad Floridians getting crazy in the streets of Lake Worth sounds like an excellent plan if you ask me!” Sounds like an excellent plan to everyone, Skart.

The Supervillains will play Summer Daze Day 2, July 14th at Propaganda, 6 South J Street Downtown Lake Worth. www.thesupervillains.com~ Dana Krangel

Scantily Clad Supervillains

Photo: Chris Martin