Andy Samberg in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. To paraphrase The Clash, phony Biebermania has bitten the dust. In the cheeky mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Andy Samberg’s Conner Friel, AKA Conner-4-Real, imagines an older, unwiser Bieber — one liberated from adolescent demographics if not behavior, extravagantly tatted and gold-chained, monumentally … [Read more...]
Pop and Jazz Happenings: April 2016
The Natty Bos. Gary Rowan has presented his annual Uncle Gary’s Rock & Rib Fest (www.UncleGarysRockandRibFest.com) for a decade, and watched the event grow exponentially. Yet he wishes he never had to. The festival honors his only child, daughter Ashley, who succumbed to the rare childhood liver cancer hepatoblastoma in 2002 at age 3. “This is truly a labor of love; my … [Read more...]
Pop and Jazz Happenings, March 2016: Sisters ditch pop for country; Okeechobee Fest debuts
Modern country music has increasingly featured elements of pop, yet it’s still ironic that one of Palm Beach County’s rising authentic country groups came out of an act influenced by the Disney World, bubble gum sect of that genre. Yes, before sisters Alisa and Laura Whitacre formed White Acres (www.whiteacresmusic.com) in 2012, they were in full Britney Spears mode with … [Read more...]
Pop and Jazz Happenings, February 2016: Pianist Keller finds rewards in jazz, teaching
Brad Keller. (Photo by Bill Meredith) There may not be a better Palm Beach County-based jazz instrumentalist than pianist Delray Beach resident Brad Keller, but he certainly played the field musically beforehand. “I started as a vocal major in college,” he says. “I was going to be an opera singer until we all found out I wasn’t good enough. So I studied piano at Broward … [Read more...]