Cover: Nick Sirotich @nickelopsus and nickelopsus.com
“The greater the disparity, the greater the despair.”#GreedKills #FlipThePyramid
10/1 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Mei-Lan & Ali BANYAN LIVE: Nocturne Underground w Oriena, Coraline’s Collapse, May We Cross In Dreams, Tooth, Alsace Lorraine ARTS GARAGE: Blues Brothers Soul Band ZEYZEY: Dadi Freyr KILL YOUR IDOL: Amazing Colossal Karaoke 10/2 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Thundercat PROPAGANDA : Winter Goth Celebration ft Caelum Wraith, Blood Orchid, Ninety Percent, crimesididntcommit, DJ Jason CHURCHILL’S PUB: Bobby Peru, Inscribed, A Plaque of Angels ARTS WAREHOUSE: New Exhibitions, Open Studios ZEYZEY: Monsieur Perine, Flamingosis KILL YOUR IDOL: Rat Bash 10/2-18 LW PLAYHOUSE: Falsettos 10/3 CULTURE ROOM: Screeching Weasel MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Zoso GUANABANAS: Electric Piquete, Itawe & the Positive Vibrations PROPAGANDA: Last Laugh Burlesque ZEYZEY: Whipped Cream
BANYAN LIVE: LiveKill, MRSA, Death Of A Deity, Silenmara, Mind Virus ARTS GARAGE: Foreigner Experience & Bad Inc KILL YOUR IDOL: Perro Negro REVELRY: Popswap Hall-o-Scream ft Shakers, The Stiff, The Greytones, Vendors 10/4 REVOLUTION LIVE: Mariachi El Bronx, Bedouin Soundclash MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Florida Fellowship Super Choir BANYAN LIVE: To The Grave, Crown Magnetar KILL YOUR IDOL: Late Nite Loops, All Improv Jam ARTS GARAGE: Julius Sanna (Nat King Cole Trib) BROWARD CENTER: Arts Launch Broward 10/5 FAU BOCA: Path of the Panther: A Visual Journey to Preserve Wild Florida with Carlton Ward, Jr. KILL YOUR IDOL: Sin Mondays by Just Gio 10/6 CHURCHILL’S PUB: He Is Legend 10/7 REVOLUTION LIVE: Infinity Song 10/8 RESOURCE DEPOT: Creative Climate Challenge
CHURCHILL’S PUB: Sex Mex ZEYZEY: Night Tapes, Degs, Craze & Shinobi B2B Stereotype
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10/9 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Black Country, New Road LAS ROSAS: Ultra Sunn, Soft Vein, L.U.S.T. ARTS GARAGE: Max Hightower Band KILL YOUR IDOL: The Way We Move ZEYZEY: Cain Culto, Fahlberg & Orsay PROPAGANDA: Put Your Funny Where Your Mouth Is – Comedy – Latina Fury BANYAN LIVE: Gimme Gimme Disco REVOLUTION LIVE: Bop to the Top
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10/10 LAS ROSAS: Limited Fanfare 15 Year Party ft Palomino Blond, Sunday Driver, Smelter, Heavy Drag, The Personal Demons, DJ Mick Ford MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: La Nina, Italian Hit Week REVOLUTION LIVE: Fang Club Hells Gate ZEYZEY: Cannons PROPAGANDA:Aversed, Pathogenic, Seventh Judgement, Faethom KILL YOUR IDOL: DJ Zehno INVASIVE SPECIES: Punktoberfest! ft Sewerside Bombers, Tiger Sunset, Wild Spark ARTS GARAGE: Fortunate Sons: CCR Tribute ARTS WAREHOUSE: Open Figure Studio w/ Model 10/11 CHURCHILL’S PUB: Aversed, Pathogenic ARTS GARAGE: Chardavoine & The Evolution KILL YOUR IDOL: Late Nite Loops, All Improv Jam 10/12 VIRGINIA KEY BEACH PARK: Stink and Dutty KILL YOUR IDOL: Sin Mondays by Just Gio 10/13 LAS ROSAS: Sub Urban BANYAN LIVE: Spite, Stick To Your Guns, No Cure 10/14 ZEYZEY: Twin Shadow, Neon Indian, Washed Out, Lolo Reskin DJ Sets 10/15 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: Les Greene & the Swayzees REVOLUTION LIVE: Toadies, Local H, Emily Wolfe HARD ROCK LIVE: Def Leppard ARTS WAREHOUSE: Candle Making Workshop BANYAN LIVE: Halloween House Riot w SOL, Turbo Kid, Dirty Crumbums, Survived By 10/16-17 MANA WYNWOOD: III Points 10/16 REVOLUTION LIVE: Arch Enemy, The Black Dahlia Murder, Septicflesh, Crypta, Thrown Into Exile MAI KAI – MOLOKAI BAR: Mala Onda LAS ROSAS: Wasted Era, DoneFor ZEYZEY: Party Pupils KILL YOUR IDOL: Velvet 78 PROPAGANDA: Dyke Night ARTS GARAGE: Nicole Henry 10/17 LINCOLN’S BEARD: Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy, Scarlet Rae FTL WAR MEMORIAL: Knocked Loose, Denzel Curry, Superheaven, Boundaries ARTS GARAGE: Nicole Henry ZEYZEY: Alta Joda Fest PROPAGANDA: Kink Night KILL YOUR IDOL: Love Frequency 10/18 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: ZunZun Children’s Fest ft Inez Barlatier & Con Alma y Fuego
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ILL YOUR IDOL: Late Nite Loops, All Improv Jam HURCHILL’S PUB: Ceremony AS ROSAS: Bygone Summers
0/21 ROPAGANDA: The Planet Smashers, ¡Fuákata!, More Better Band LL YOUR IDOL: Confession Kids, Crotch Meat, ent Strike RTS WAREHOUSE: Bookbinding Workshop EYZEY: Bombargo EVOLUTION LIVE: EsDeeKid, Rico Ace
0/22 EVOLUTION LIVE: Yung Gravy, Terror Reid HURCHILL’S PUB: Torche EYZEY: Mashbit, Black Chiney RTS WAREHOUSE: Open Figure Studio w/ Model
0/23 TL WAR MEMORIAL: Turnpike Troubadours, Muscadine Bloodline OVE BREWERY: Feral Friends Showdown: Live Painting Competition EVOLUTION LIVE: Olivia Rodrigo Night EYZEY: Dope Lemon RTS GARAGE: Néstor Torres
0/24 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: John Scofield’s Electrospective” TL WAR MEMORIAL: Niko Moon, Blake Proehl RTS GARAGE: Néstor Torres EYZEY: Lewis Ofman HURCHILL’S PUB: A Wilhelm Scream EVOLUTION LIVE: Scene Queen Metalicious, Wargasm, Bailey Spinn RTS WAREHOUSE: Intro to Photography Full-Day
0/25 MIAMI BEACH BANDSHELL: 3rd Festival de Bomba Plena Miami Beach LL YOUR IDOL: Late Nite Loops, All Improv Jam EYZEY: Peter Bjorn & John
0/27 ULTURE ROOM: The Linda Lindas
0/29 EVOLUTION LIVE: Prof, Grieves, Norman Sann, hantrast, Willie Wonka TL WAR MEMORIAL: Black Label Society, akk Sabbath, Dark Chapel ANYAN LIVE: Peeling Flesh, Gridiron EYZEY: Puma Blue
0/30 ANYAN LIVE: Hallowbeatz HURCHILL’S PUB: Thriller Halloween Music Fest Ambush, Bully Pussy, Boca de Serpiente, ate Machine EVOLUTION LIVE: Honey Revenge x Dead Poet ociety, Hunny, Broadside LL YOUR IDOL: Alter Ego EYZEY: Ile, Fleetmac Wood, Horror HiFi RTS GARAGE: Mysterion: The Man Who Sees omorrow RISTIN HJELLEGJERDE GALLERY: Makiko Harris – Hold You in Devotion (thru 11/28)
0/31 ROWARD CENTER: Sonic Live in Concert ROPAGANDA: Kiss+Misfits+Ramones, ostume contest. HURCHILL’S PUB: Necrodanse Halloween Party EYZEY: Mark Farinas Mushroom Jazz, Nutritious ANYAN LIVE: Absolute Queen, bsolute Def Leppard Tributes LL YOUR IDOL: Halloween Party NVASIVE SPECIES: Halloween Rock Party! ft V for olume, Cabaleta, Boca de Serpiente RTS GARAGE: Turn It On Again (Phil Collins Trib)
Chloe Hashemi @photosbychloeh
Thundercat by erik kvarnberg
After the sudden death of hip-hop troubadour Mac Miller in 2018, the singer, songwriter, bassist and producer Thundercat released It Is What It Is, a 2020 album heavily influenced by the loss of his celebrated friend and collaborator Miller. Six years later comes Thundercat’s followup, Distracted, a jazzy hip-hop, r&b and funk record with a dash of yacht rock that feels like returning to everyday chaos when the mourning never really stopped. Thundercat gets support on Distracted from Tame Impala, Lil Yachty, A$AP Rocky, Willow and The Lemon Twigs, collaborations testifying to his boundary-crossing prowess. “I’ve always tried to follow my instincts, my gut, and how I feel,” Thundercat tells PureHoney. “I put myself in a lot of different situations. I like being challenged, especially when it comes to things like pop culture.” He and his drummer sibling were, for several years, the touring rhythm section for punk legends Suicidal Tendencies. After many years away pursuing his solo career, Thundercat has recently dropped in with them on a handful of gigs. “I felt like I never left .. like it was still ingrained in my DNA,” he says. Born Stephen Bruner in Los Angeles, the son of a drummer for The Temptations and The Supremes, Thundercat grew up with music. But there was also a moment when he wanted to be a professional illustrator. “I was like, ‘I wanna draw!’ and my dad was like, ‘Absolutely not!’” he says with a laugh. He may be best known for 2015’s “Them Changes,” a funky banger about heartbreak that is not an outlier in Thundercat’s unique approach to melody, harmony and groove. It has audible kinship to Distracted tracks such as “Funny Friends,” an eloquent balance of jazz chords, tight drums and hypnotic synth with a smooth A$AP Rocky verse. Thundercat’s musical training and instincts have led him over and around the walls that keep genres apart. “It is a bit dystopian, the idea that these things are so separate,” he says, calling it “a challenge” — one he welcomes — “to not have to compromise.” Read the full Q&A by Sean Piccoli at Purehoney.com. Thundercat plays 7pm Friday, October 2 at Miami Beach Bandshell. theamazingthundercat.com
Falsettos is the Tony Award-winning musical that blends humor, heart, and unforgettable music into a deep moving story of love, family, an finding connection. Funny, poignant, and profoundly hum this modern Broadway classic an unforgettable theatrical experience. 713 Lake Avenue Lake Wor th Beach, FL. 33460 Box Of f ice: 561-586-6410 www.lakewor thplayhouse.org
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NICK SIROTICH by kelli bodle
There’s something almost suspiciously inviting about the work of Nick Sirotich. Our artist of the month incorporates a bright color palette and sugary-sweet graphics that tuck a focused political message inside a “Trojan Horse,” in his words, of cute iconography. His eye for design is impeccable, capturing your attention and moving it around the composition with age-old techniques such as the rule of thirds and the golden ratio. But don’t take the pleasure of viewing an aesthetically balanced image at face value; there are layers of meaning yet to unpack. Born in 1987 in Buffalo, New York, Sirotich moved to Florida at six and was raised here. He is now based in California’s Bay Area, although to a Floridian hearing him describe his present circumstances — a diverse but challenging artist economy in a region where everything costs a fortune — it might sound like he never left. “Living out here is wild,” Sirotich tells PureHoney. “It’s been a continued source of inspiration and a place with a vibrant community and enough appreciation for the arts to patch together a survivable career, despite the cost of living. It’s also a place with the most obscene wealth inequality of anywhere I’ve ever been. It’s a mixed bag. I can’t imagine living somewhere else anytime soon, and I don’t know if I’d be able to become this version of myself anywhere else.” Oakland and San Francisco are where Sirotich developed his primary style:“[A]n evolution of the same basic idea for most of my career: tight, expressive line drawings with flat, primaryheavy, bright colors, and minimal gradient. I’ve always been really drawn (pun) to that aesthetic as it feels very direct and doesn’t forgive errors well. It’s a challenge.” As his work has grown to tackle more serious subjects, “I think that it operates as a Trojan Horse to some extent to draw people in with something that looks sleek or cool or cute,” he says. “Then it hits you with an uncomfortable message, an impossible-to-ignore injustice, or a call to action. The work can be kind of eye-catching and bold, and therefore it’s a quick delivery system for ideas.” Sirotich’s delivery system has worked so well, in fact, looked so sleek and smooth that now he is contending with accusations of using artificial intelligence to create it, which he does not appreciate. “I’ve essentially worked in the same style for over 20 years, and when it’s accused of being aided by AI in any way (which of course it’s not), it devalues the work,” he says. “I’ve been told to change my style because it can be confused with AI. I loathe AI; it’s so tacky and destructive, and it’s being forced into everything.” But he won’t be changing his style any time soon; it’s baked into his legacy. “I’ve made political art for maybe a decade so far, but I think it really picked up around 2020 when I painted a small mural of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in San Francisco,” he says. “I’d always been engaged in political and social issues personally, but hadn’t really used my art to contribute to causes I supported. Since then, I realized I had something I could put to use and try to help the communities and causes I care about.” He takes a more playful approach to his live portrait drawings, a for-hire practice at parties and the like that he calls the Human Photobooth. “People book me for a few hours, and I draw a portrait of one of their guests every 5-10 minutes,” Sirotich says. “It’s a unique and novel idea that people really seem to love.” His portfolio also spans popular music. “I grew up around super talented musicians, so gig posters and album covers were huge influences on my art,” Sirotich says. “I’ve worked with bands, venues, and performers for much of my life, and they bring the coolest projects. I’ve done gig posters for NOFX, Kaskade, Flogging Molly, and many more. I’ve done album covers and single-release illustrations for Wiz Khalifa, Pleasures, and BFB DaPackman. I’ve worked with venues around the Bay and beyond. Music and visual art are so interconnected that it only makes sense to collaborate.”
Follow Nick Sirotich at nickelopsus.com and @nickolopsus
JAXON WHITTINGTON
The Linda Lindas by abel folgar
The thing about being called the future of punk is that eventually the future arrives. It can’t get here soon enough for The Linda Lindas if, by “future,” we mean everyone else finally catching up to them as an actual band. When their 2021 Los Angeles Public Library performance of “Racist, Sexist Boy” went viral, Bela Salazar, Eloise Wong and sisters Lucia and Mila de la Garza were suddenly everywhere. Their ages, then 10 to 16, became nearly inseparable from the story: four kids making a glorious racket about societal defects and the general bullshit of growing up.
And that wasn’t even their first milestone. Two years earlier, Kathleen Hanna invited them to open for Bikini Kill in 2019. Lucia later recalled how the riot grrl punk legends treated them not as children or a novelty, but as musicians. Peers. Not that punk requires a permission slip or that the The Linda Lindas were waiting around for anyone’s approval. Their 2022 debut, Growing Up, gave way to the more expansive, scrappier No Obligation in 2024. Then came tours with Paramore and Green Day and a turn opening for the Rolling Stones, the perfectly normal trajectory from public library branch to rock ’n’ roll institution support act. Their just-released third album, Gotta Get Out, makes the kids-playing-punk description feel especially dusty and patronizing. The quartet pushes outward into hardcore, emo, post-punk and new wave, with Paramore’s Hayley Williams joining them on “Closer,” a song fittingly preoccupied with time refusing to slow the hell down. Growing older hasn’t made The Linda Lindas easier to define; it’s made them harder to contain. Four songwriters and singers tug at the band from different directions while years spent playing together keep the whole beautiful mess tethered to the same noisy center. The exciting thing about The Linda Lindas was never that four girls could play punk rock. It was what might happen if everyone shut up about their ages long enough to listen. Here’s hoping the future is now. The Linda Lindas with special guests The Rat Utopia Experiment perform 7pm Tuesday, October 27 at the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. thelindalindas.com
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Scarlet Rae by olivia feldman
With her elfin voice and palpable ache, Scarlet Rae has a way of making listeners feel like she’s working through emotions in real time. Her confessional songs and lyrics, cocooned protectively inside distorted electric and razor-wire acoustic guitar, are the makings of a dark grunge-pop dream.
One of two daughters of concert photographer Meegan Hodges and guitarist Mark Knight, Rae was playing guitar by age eight and, as a high schooler, opening for her father in San Fernando Valley bars. After fronting local indie favorites Rose Dorn, Rae initiated a creative reset by moving to Brooklyn at age 18 during the pandemic. Her self-produced style of thorny instrumentation and wavy, submerged vocal melodies coalesced into a 2024 debut single, “Bleu,” on Bayonet Records, and earned her comparisons to singer-songwriter Alex G. “Bleu” was also intensely personal, a response to the suicide earlier that year of her older sister, Lucy-Bleu Knight, a personal loss that also shook the tight-knit Los Angeles music community into which Rae was born. (Her stepfather is guitarist Slash of Guns N Roses.) Her 2025 EP, No Heavy Goodbyes, found her continuing to process grief through five haunting but accessible tracks. Aided by producer Jordan Lawlor of M83, Rae opened the EP with “A World Where She Left Me Out,” a lament for the loss of a “shoulder to cry on” that also asks,“Where’s the self compassion? / When did you start undressing? / There’s a black cloud / Over surrounding a world where she left me out / By myself / To be by myself.” As she tours this fall with Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy, a newer track, “Best Waitress,” on her Bandcamp, contemplates a way forward with a mixture of sadness, determination and rueful counsel: “Do one thing that scares you / Everyday until you die / That’s how you break the chain-loop / But who am I to give advice?” If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. Scarlet Rae opens for Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy 6pm Saturday, Oct. 17 at Lincoln’s Beard Brewing & Cocktails in Miami. scarletrae.bandcamp.com
Screeching Weasel by tim moffatt
Many musicians have passed through the turnstile of membership in Screeching Weasel. Over the lifespan of this skate punk combo from Ferris Bueller suburbia there’s Aaron Cometbus, Mike Dirnt, John Jughead and Joe Queer, among others with jokey surnames who either came aboard from, or went on to, other noteworthy gigs. The one constant is singer and guitarist Ben Weasel, nee Ben Foster. Screeching Weasel is Ben’s baby, the offspring of his own experience growing up in the ‘80s in a Chicagoland bedroom community on a diet of the Ramones. Screeching Weasel are often linked to the pop-punk scene we now associate with the likes of Good Charlotte. And while there is some resemblance pioneered by the former — speedy tempos, buzzing guitars and catchy melodies — Screeching Weasel come out of a more hardcore tradition with more antagonism and caustic lyrics. Whereas pop punk moons over girls and high school, and has very little Black Flag, DOA, Circle Jerks or Fear in its DNA, Screeching Weasel have no intention of being nostalgic or nice. It is hard work being both prolific and good, but Ben Weasel doesn’t appear to mind putting in the time and the labor. Alongside 15 full length albums, the most recent being 2022’s The Awful Disclosures of Screeching Weasel, there is a library’s worth of singles, EPs, splits and compilation tracks. Brief sabbaticals in the form of the Vindictives, the Riverdales and the Shotdowns have proved that while collaborators helped along the sound, the basic ideas are all Ben’s. In a culture that promotes adoration of an elevated few who get to call themselves “rock stars” of their professions, people like Ben Weasel are the stick in the spokes of wealthabetted fakery. People call him cantankerous, controversial, abrasive. But he would never, say, buy up music publications for clout only to gut them later. (We’re looking at you Benji and Joel Madden.) Besides, who has that kind of money? Reckless abandon and a thicker skin are recommended instead. Screeching Weasel, with special guests The Queers, and Billy Batts & The Made Men, play 7:30 pm Saturday October 3 at Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale. screechingweasel.com
Limited Fanfare at 15 by david rolland
South Florida is no stranger to quinceañeras. Now how should a local record label celebrate its fifteenth birthday? In the case of the Limited Fanfare, you book Las Rosas in Miami on a Saturday night in October and have five of your label’s most immersively melodic rock, psych, alt-metal and emo bands perform. Brian Kurtz started Limited Fanfare in 2011, inspired by influential indie labels such as Sub Pop and Matador. “I wanted to release music and work with musicians that are growing or flying under the radar but deserve to be heard,” Kurtz tells PureHoney. “A good song that sucks me in is the whipped cream and people hearing it is just the cherry on top.” Fifteen years is a long time to do anything, but Kurtz says the ups have far outweighed the downs, “I’ve been able to rescue batches of songs from possible obscurity, had songs in over 30 TV shows and movies, gotten press in SPIN, Alternative Press, Magnet, NPR, won some awards locally and sold thousands of records.” What he says he prizes most is the relationships with musicians — “being able to talk to the people in the bands themselves about what’s going on with their single or album or even something that happened 10 or 20 years ago.” Palomino Blond headline. Sunday Driver and Heavy Drag perform one-off reunion sets around performances by Smelter and The Personal Demons. DJ Mick Ford of Fort Lauderdale’s Connect Records spins between sets. There will be limited-edition LPs, CDs and cassettes available to buy. “We’ll also have signed records, test pressings, and screen printed posters for the show that you can grab at the merch table,” Kurtz says. This party isn’t a farewell; Kurtz plans to keep putting out records. “I’m working on a couple of other top secret vinyl and cassette reissues.” Among them, he lists “a 3 tape box set from one of the best power-pop bands of the late 90s/2000s.” Palomino Blond, Sunday Driver, Smelter, Heavy Drag, The Personal Demons, and DJ Mick Ford play the “15 Years of Limited Fanfare Records” birthday party, 8pm Saturday October 10 at Las Rosas in Miami. limitedfanfare.com
Gerald Casale on Devo and De-evolution by david rolland
Devo with their red flowerpot hats and robotic dance moves always had the feel of a band rooted in comedy. But their singer Gerald Casale told PureHoney Magazine via Zoom that the band’s origins were instead rooted in tragedy and politics. Casale was one of the student protestors at Kent State in 1970 when four college students were infamously murdered by The National Guard. “Two of the four students who got killed were friends of mine, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krauss. Jeffrey was about 25 feet behind me,” Casale said wistfully. “I don’t think that I would have gone the direction I did if the killings at Kent State University in 1970 hadn’t happened.” Casale had a lifelong love of music growing up in Ohio. As a child he’d dance endlessly to what he described as country and hillbilly radio shows. “My parents were very bluecollar and they were Catholics, so they had too many children. They couldn’t afford to give me any lessons, or buy me any instruments, so it never happened. Nothing ever happened until I started listening to Bob Dylan, his early, acoustic stuff, like Another Side of Bob Dylan, and I made enough money where I bought myself an acoustic guitar.” Casale jammed with a famous-in-Ohio blues group known as the 15-60-75 or The Numbers Band. “They’re so famous around there, and so revered, and so respected, because the lead singer, Bob Kidney, was basically a musicologist, a student of the blues. He taught me how to play harmonica.” That blues background was in sharp contrast with the prog rock stylings of the other musical architect of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh. “He was the guy that got music lessons and learned to play the piano when he was 5 or 6, and so he was all about, how many notes can I play in 5 seconds? And how many time signatures can I switch to?” There was a certain push and pull between the simple blues and complex prog rock, but what united Casale and Mothersbaugh was the desire to create something completely new. “We won’t base anything that we do on music that you’ve already heard, that’s already on the radio, that’s already popular. We’re going to start over, and if it sounds like something else throw it out. So, it became this self-imposed minimalism. Conceptual minimalism. And we would actually say, why are you changing after 8 bars? There’s no reason to change after 8 bars. You’re just doing that because songs change after 8 bars. And we would laugh and just say, unless you can explain to me why we’re changing, we’re not going to change.” Beyond trying to revolutionize modern music, they also wanted to incorporate interesting visuals, satire and politics into the Devo package. It took nearly the entire 1970’s for the rest of the world to catch up where they found fans like David Bowie and John Lennon and played on Saturday Night Live. In 1981 “Whip It” became their signature hit. The song and the video had a humorous bite, but there were political underpinnings to everything Casale and Devo did. That continues with Casale’s latest solo song “Just Do It” which rails against Donald Trump, just as 56 years ago he protested against Nixon. “Whatever forces were at work around 1970 with a dictatorial president and the collapsing of the three guardrails of government, that today it’s on steroids. We’re so far beyond that now. That’s what I’m appalled at. That’s what I’m freaked at. That’s why I put out the song. “ Casale would have loved to have released the song as part of a new Devo album, but he says he’s the only one of the original members keen to record new Devo music. “Believe me, I wish I wasn’t the only one carrying the torch. I wish, rather than my solo album, that it was a Devo album, because I go to radio stations, or I go to SiriusXM, and they interview me, and they go, wow, you know, this new song, if this was a Devo song, I’d be playing the shit out of it. It’s like they don’t realize what an insult it is. It’s like, here’s the guy that collaborated and wrote with Mark 85% of Devo songs, right? And in addition to directing videos and designing the stage shows. And no wonder it sounds like Devo. I’m fucking Devo.” But thankfully Devo still exists as a touring band with all the surviving members including Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, and Bob Mothersbaugh. They played their first South Florida show since 1988 on August 28 at Fillmore Miami Beach. Casale says it wasn’t personal why they haven’t played our neck of the woods in nearly 40 years, but rather political. “Florida has become a flaming red state, and there was never any demand. There were no promoters going, hey, Devo, come down here! And we’d go, no! You know, it wasn’t like that. It was no interest. Zero.” Casale swears Devo sounds as good as ever. “I don’t think we would be out there unless we felt we could still deliver, because Devo was never boring. Devo was never about just playing your songs, and you might as well shut your eyes and think you’re listening to a record. It’s theatrics, and visuals, and energy. And I think what you’re going to see is something that you’re going to be entertained by and excited by.” And if you do disagree with Casale politically, he promises their concerts lack any overt preaching. Rather they focus on more subtle jabs. “Devo was never really about being on the nose politically or, you know, supporting one candidate or one party. Because what we saw is the flaw, the duality in human nature.”