In 2010, Earl Klugh was invited to play at the Crossroads Guitar Festival outside Chicago.

At first blush, it seems an odd match – the roster of Crossroads was blues and rock heavy, Klugh is well known as an acoustic jazz guitarist.

But Eric Clapton’s invitation bore out, as Klugh gave a standout performance.

"I really enjoyed the idea," Klugh said in a telephone interview. "Just be allowed to play and do what you’re going to do. I ended up having even more fun backstage, there were so many various people. It was really a who’s who of everyone having to do with guitars."

Directions, invite a friend, nearby dining

On Saturday, Klugh will be playing a more traditional show, performing Saturday at the Duncan Theatre on the suburban Lake Worth campus of Palm Beach State College. Klugh said his setlist will encompass a good stretch of his career, which reaches back to when he began working with artists like Chet Atkins, Yusef Lateef and George Benson as a teenager.

Read the full story

The Avett Brothers perform at Sunfest in 2011. (Mark Edelson / Post file photo)

UPDATE: Fixed date for Avett Brothers’ show to Friday, not Saturday.

It wasn’t that long ago that you could see the country/folk/rock trio The Avett Brothers in Lake Worth’s intimate Bamboo Room, performing their stomping brand of music. (I did in 2007.)

Four years later and the following things have happened:
• Appeared on the Grammy Awards with Bob Dylan and Mumford and Sons
• Recorded I and Love and You LP with Rick Rubin
• Appeared on the late-night shows of David Letterman, Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Fallon
• Performed as a headliner on the first night of SunFest in 2011
• Recorded a show at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, N.C., and released a DVD/CD of the show, Live, Vol. 3.

Directions, nearby dining, invite a friend

So it’s not that surprising that the Avetts aren’t playing the same venue this time around – although I’m sure they’d love to if the opportunity presented itself. Instead, they’ll play the much roomier Sunset Cove Amphitheater, west of Boca Raton, on Friday.

Currently they’re working on the follow-up to I and Love and You, again with Rubin. Will we hear new stuff that might end up on the LP? Well, they have made a point of playing “The Once and Future Carpenter”, which is likely to be on the new record.
Read the full story

Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells.

Derek Miller hasn’t forgotten where he came from.

The guitarist/songwriter for the duo Sleigh Bells was taking time off during the holidays at his mom’s home in Jupiter, when he and singer Alexis Krauss decided that they had the perfect location for a new music video: the old neighborhood.

“There’s a scene where Alexis is jumping on a bed, that’s in my mom’s room, and she’s holding my rifle,” Miller said about the video for “Comeback Kid”. “We tried to film at the Publix, but it would’ve been really expensive, so we went up to this place called Peggy’s (Natural Food Market) in Stuart.”

Directions, nearby dining, invite a friend | Miami show information

“Comeback Kid”, the second song released off the group’s second album, Reign of Terror, is not only a great introduction to the group’s pop-vocals-meet-heavy-guitar-and-quick-beats style, it’s also a very different look at South Florida. Krauss and Miller sing and play in the Egret Cove neighborhood, while during the chorus, Krauss sings on the beach during sunset.

“It sounds kind of ridiculous, but they do call that the ‘golden hour’,” Miller said. “That part of the song is all like it is at the beach – it’s airy and moody at that point, and the beach shots worked really well.”
Read the full story

UPDATE: We added Mississippi Sweets in Wellington/Boca.

“The key to a good barbecue” is the kind of discussion that varies from person to person. Some like a sweet sauce, others a vinegar-based version. Some like a spicy rub. Some use the good ol’ cooker. Some use firewood.

Whatever your taste, we’d like to know what your favorite local barbecue joint is.

And yes, we’ve done this one before — this was actually our very first Taking Your Pulse poll last January. Unfortunately, we only had 33 votes, and I know there are more barbecue fans than that in Palm Beach County.

So vote in our poll — and if you don’t see your favorite, click “other” and give us a write-in. We’ll mention the top votegetters there as well.
Read the full story

Last year, we asked you what your favorite movie theater in the county was.

We did have a winner: the Muvico Parisian 20 at CityPlace. Unfortunately, we also only had 65 votes.

(Understandable — we had just started Taking Your Pulse, so it wasn’t all that well publicized.)

So we decided to try again this year, and behind a much more respectable 333 votes, we have a new winner.

Your 2011 favorite movie theater is Cobb Downtown 16, in the Downtown at the Gardens center in Palm Beach Gardens.

The Downtown 16 came away with 30 percent of the vote, edging out the Cobb Jupiter 18, which had 27 percent.

Last year’s winner, the Parisian 20, was still a respectable third with 18.9 percent of the vote.

Rounding out the top five were the Cinemark Boynton at 5.7 percent and Boca Raton’s Cinemark Palace 20 at 5.3 percent.

Click here to see the full results.

On this year's roster for the South Beach Comedy Festival: Lewis Black, Donald Glover, Aziz Ansari.

The guy who wants you to save NBC’s Community on YouTube is coming to South Florida – probably hoping his campaign is successful.

Donald Glover, who plays Greendale Community College student Troy Barnes, will be part of the lineup for the South Beach Comedy Festival in Miami Beach, Feb. 29-March 3.

Glover will be joined by Lewis Black, Aziz Ansari, Mark Maron, Jeffrey Ross, the team of Key & Peele, Amy Schumer, Rob Delaney and Hannibal Buress, along with the roster of Shaq’s All-Star Comedy Jam, including Bill Bellamy, Gary Owen and Tommy Davidson.

Glover is a multi-talented performer who also counts rap among his skills – he uses the name Childish Gambino – and was also a writer on 30 Rock before starting on Community. Glover received the first-ever Rising Comedy Star of the Year Award at the recent Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.

He’ll be performing March 3 at the Fillmore Miami Beach.
Read the full story

Foreigner's roster includes founder Mick Jones and lead singer Kelly Hansen. (Photos by Veda Jo Jenkins / sflimages.com)

Things are lining up nicely if you happen to be part of a classic-rock band these days.

With the potential blockbuster status of the movie Rock Of Ages – which has a full-on rock soundtrack of ‘70s and ‘80s music – this summer, this music will hit the ears of a whole new generation of potential fans.

And Foreigner hopes to be a big part of it. The group has three songs in the film, one of which will be sung by Tom Cruise. That, plus a tour and a three-disc set – Feels Like the First Time, which features the current roster singing the group’s biggest hits in various formats (straight-up, acoustic and live) – has Foreigner hoping for a big year in 2012.

“You can feel the momentum, you can feel things happening,” said the group’s lead singer, Kelly Hansen, in a telephone interview. “Last year, we had a phenomenal tour with Journey and Night Ranger. We were on the road for six months, playing in England, Ireland, and 60-odd shows in the States. It had a snowball-like feel to it.”

Directions, invite a friend | Visit Foreigner’s website | ABC’s Ty Pennington to help show off casino’s makeover

Hanson and the rest of the group – which still includes the band’s founder, guitarist Mick Jones – are bringing their classic sound to the opening night of the revamped Seminole Casino at Coconut Creek and the new Pavilion venue on Thursday night.
Read the full story

UPDATE: Added Cobb Jupiter 18 to poll.

Seeing this headline, there might be some of you who’re saying, “Wait. I’ve seen this before.”

It’s true — we did ask people what their favorite movie theater was last year. But we only had 65 total votes.

Taking Your Pulse has had a few more people voting in polls since that time, so we decided to give this one another chance.

This is the first of our “do-over” polls — polls that for one reason or another didn’t quite work out the way we’d planned.

So vote below — and if you don’t see your favorite theater, click “other” and write in the one you like.
Read the full story

Mad Rich gets some help from volunteers during his Mad Science Show at the South Florida Fair.

The cool chemistry of the Mad Science Show won out over the rest, getting the most votes in the Taking Your Pulse poll for favorite performer of the South Florida Fair.

Mad Science — a show which features sizzling scissors and popping carbon dioxide bubbles — came away with an impressive 42.5 percent of the vote, easily outdistancing the second-place performers, the Extreme Canines Stunt Dog Show (17.5 percent).

Robinson’s Racing Pigs and Paddling Porkers ended up in third place with 11.9 percent of the vote. Rounding out the top five were hypnotist Mark Yuzuik (9.4 percent), and magicians Dale Scott & Ana (3.8 percent).

Among our write-ins, popular choices were the Sea Lion Splash show and singer Dennis Lee.

Click here for the full results.

Radiolab's Jed Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, who will be bringing their show to the Fillmore Miami Beach on Wednesday. (Courtesy MarcoAntonio.com)

In 2003, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich were trying to make an interview with a scientist sound interesting. Less than nine years later, they’re filling up theaters.

Not surprisingly, this was not what the founders of Radiolab had ever expected.

Abumrad and Krulwich, the hosts of the popular show which originates at public radio station WNYC in New York, simply wanted to make the subjects in which they were interested accessible to others. As the concept became honed, the audience grew – steadily at first, then by leaps when the show became a podcast – and now their show is in high demand for live audiences.

And their audiences – more than likely including the one that’ll see them at the Fillmore Miami Beach on Wednesday – are absolutely crazy for these guys.

Directions, invite a friend, nearby dining

“The show we just did in San Francisco, the audience was ready to laugh, almost before the jokes started,” Abumrad said in a telephone interview. “The energy was really exciting. We’ve always been an interactive show, and it makes them feel like a part of the conversation we’re having. You can feel that as if it were on steroids when we walk on stage.”
Read the full story