A Heavy Pets side project debuts in Boca, the Norton opens work from an octogenarian master, and ska legends the Toasters tour West Palm Beach. Plus, a Smiths tribute and more in your week ahead.
TUESDAY
What: The Toasters
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Respectable Street, 518 N. Clematis St., West Palm Beach
Cost: $20
Contact: 561/832-9999, ticketweb.com/event/the-toasters-in-west-palm-respectable-street-tickets/14239993
The name of this enduring New York City band has nothing to do with a kitchen convenience. Toasting, in the parlance of Jamaican and ska music, simply means laying a lyrical chant, or spoken-word message, over a beat, which frontman Robert “Bucket” Hingley has been doing since he formed the Toasters in 1981. Hingley founded the band after seeing the English Beat, a renowned U.K. act that combined English new wave and island music to pioneering effect, and the Toasters have carried that mantle forward for nearly 45 years. Hingley is the only permanent member, but whatever he band is accompanying him is well-versed in both the infectious, horn-driven music and anti-racist “two-tone” politics of the genre. Be prepared to dance, and arrive early for openers Matamoska! and Fuakata!
WEDNESDAY
What: “A Backward Glance: Highlights From the William J. Glackens Collection”
When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: NSU Art Museum, 1 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale
Cost: $16 general, $10 seniors
Contact: 954/525-5500, nsuartmuseum.org
Among the NSU Art Museum’s most cherished acquisitions are the more than 1,900 objects related to famed artist William J. Glackens that were entrusted to the museum in 1990 by Glackens’ family. “A Backward Glance” showcases but a portion of these works from the prolific American artist, who specialized in an unvarnished verisimilitude as a member of the Ashcan School of urban realists. The ravishing “Seated Across with Mirror” joins works such as “Cape Cod Pier” and “Artist’s Daughter in Chinese Costume,” whose simply descriptive titles belie the works’ rich depths of feeling. The exhibition opened last weekend, and it runs all the way through August of next year.
THURSDAY
What: The Somethings
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Funky Biscuit, 303 S.E. Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton
Cost: $28.14-$33.56
Contact: 561/465-3946, funkybiscuit.com
There’s a new band in town—but with more than a few familiar faces. We’re not sure how best to describe the Somethings, whose amorphous name parallels a sound that has yet to be defined: This Thursday’s performance at Funky Biscuit will be their debut show. The players in this quintet, though, are veteran hands with plenty of experience in the music scenes of South Florida and beyond. Singer and saxophonist Josh Schwartz has played in Zac Brown Band and the Talking Heads tribute Remain in Light; and three other members all hail from SoFla jam-band institution the Heavy Pets. Their sound, said to be influenced by Grant Green, Dr. John and others, combines soul, funk and jazz. Be the first to hear the start of something interesting!
FRIDAY
What: Opening night of “Laddie John Dill: Eastern Standard Time”
When: 6 to 9 p.m.
Where: Norton Museum of Art, 1450 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach
Cost: $18 general, $15 seniors
Contact: 561/832-5196, norton.org
For California artist Laddie John Dill, a work’s surroundings are often integral to the piece itself—in this case an immersive installation, constructed from sand and handmade glass tubes infused with argon, which blankets the gallery in a luminous blue glow. After apprenticing with modern art giants like Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein, Dill became a major figure in the art world’s Light and Space Movement, whose adherents eschew traditional materials such as easels and canvas for earthen materials and the ephemerality of light and space itself. New York Times art critic Ken Johnson likened Dill’s results to “trippy visual chamber music.” Be the first to see for yourself at this Art After Dark opening of “Eastern Standard Time,” during which the 83-year-old artist himself will lead a discussion about the piece and his career from 6 to 7 p.m. Friday.
What: Ordinary Boys
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Revolution Live, 100 S.W. Third Ave., Fort Lauderdale
Cost: $13
Contact: 954/449-1025, jointherevolution.net
The Smiths lasted just five years in the early 1980s and all but invented a strain of earnest but muscular jangle pop that married punk, goth and art rock. Their prickly frontman, Morrissey, wrote lyrics that wallowed in self-pity one minute and bristled with dark humor the next, a trade he’s continued to ply in an enduring solo career. But Morrissey plays few Smiths songs on his current tours; Ordinary Boys, a Florida-based tribute to the Smiths and Morrissey, performs a robust mix of Smiths classics and deep cuts, along with selections from Morrissey’s solo career. Vocalist AJ Navarette, who formed the tribute in 2010, performs a perfect mimicry of the real McCoy, and his band is equally adept. Arrive for openers New Dawn Fades, with the same band of Ordinary Boys performing the music of Joy Division and New Order.
For more of Boca magazine’s arts and entertainment coverage, click here.
