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Jamboree with the Funky Nuggets!

While mega-fests like Bonnaroo seem to be multiplying like sweaty, monstrous, Day-Glo rabbits with a thousand faces (including Paul McCarntey's visage front and center), the occurrence of super fun local and regional festies continues across the country. Here in Florida, we've got several, including Orange Blossom Jamboree which is happening this weekend just up the road in Brooksville, Florida.

Unlike the Super Bowl-sized fests, neither the line-up nor ticket price of OBJ will cause your heart to race and eyes to pop out of your skull. But that's not the point. What can be expected and cherished at OBJ is a laid back communal experience with a stellar cast of musicians setting the tone all weekend.

Here, New Times would like to clue you in on a few of the artists attendees ought to be sure to check out.

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Imagine Dragons grew up listening to alternative and classic rock, which definitely comes through in their pop-rock sound. But guitarist Wayne Sermon told us that he and his bandmates also get down to hip-hop, world music, and Simon and Garfunkel. "Our music is a tribute to what we listened to and played in Las Vegas," he said.

The foursome is on the road from Sin City on their Night Visions Tour, which'll take them to the Sunset Cove Amphitheater stage in Boca Raton this weekend. We got deep with Sermon, asking him the real stuff of life, like if he were a dragon, what kind of dragon would he be? And he told us how Sesame Street and Labyrinth came together in one of their videos.

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Who ever said white boys don't have soul?

Take it from David Bowie, the Bee Gees, Hall & Oates, George Michael -- all these guys have defied the odds and earned permanent slots in our booty-shaking, baby-making playlists. Even our reigning Prince of Dirty Pop, former boy band heartthrob Justin Timberlake, has broken stereotypes and crossed genres with his sizzling, soul-infused hip-hop and R&B mega hits.

When a group of just-out-of-college white boys comes together to make music, people normally wouldn't expect to hear a sound like that of the Politix, a funky, old school-inspired hip-hop five-piece from Miami who've been booking shows at some of the city's most respected venues.

The Politix will play a show at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale as part of the inaugural Block x Blog Music and Arts Festival. In anticipation of the event, the guys took a moment to introduce themselves to New Times and give us a small taste of the band's soulful, funk-flavored hip-hop.

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Minion of gentle tunes, serial dater, Twitter enthusiast, and vintage-Rolex expert John Mayer has returned to the spotlight, with the hashtag "#mayerisback" as his war cry.

This is an official return for Mayer -- not your standard-issue postbreak-up media blitz -- as the man, and his inimitable, airy, girlfriend-approved voice, have finally been delivered to the positive side of treatment for a granuloma located near his vocal cords.

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His name has become intrinsically entwined with others of the New Jersey rock elite -- Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Little Steven Van Zandt -- but even so, Southside Johnny has maintained his blue-collar, Everyman persona. The gritty soul- and R&B-infused grooves he's championed since the early '70s became an indelible signature sound best encapsulated in his raucous, sweat-soaked stage show. In fact, all three of the aforementioned icons have intersected Southside Johnny's trajectory personally and professionally at one time or another, ensuring his lifetime membership in that fabled Jersey hierarchy.

This particular afternoon, however, the man once known simply as John Lyon is engaged in an activity decidedly removed from the image he embraces when he's facing the stage lights. It seems that the musician who made the song "I Don't Want to Go Home" something of a personal anthem is, in fact, tending to domestic duties. "I was busy changing my windshield wipers," he confesses.

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Monica McGivern

This weekend local record label Wayward Parade and indie dive bar Propaganda compete for asphalt space in Lake Worth. The upstart Palm Beach County-based label is teaming up with Propaganda and throwing a two-day music festival amidst all the chalk art glory that is the Street Painting Festival. Besides booking a stellar lineup inside the local haunt, Wayward Parade Music Festival is also spilling outside onto J Street, where Sergio Witis and his Wayward Crew have booked bands to perform free.

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- Photos: Everymen's Benefit Show for Cowboy at Propaganda

"It's perfect timing," said the engaging frontman for crusty swamp punk troupe Everymen. Witis, who goes by the stage name Capt'n Bobo, is part owner of Wayward Parade, along with the Darling Sweets main sweetie Lindsey Sayre, and tattoo impresario John Wylie, proprietor of Aces High Tattoo in West Palm Beach and Black Rose Tattoo in Deerfield Beach.

Witis tells us the bands performing on J Street are a bit of a surprise, as they are not listed on any flyers or on the Facebook event page. He tells us the Wayward Festival is all about showing appreciation for the fans support, and having bands perform free outside is just another facet of that appreciation.
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Melanie: the once and forever goddess of flower power.

Speaking on the phone from her home in Nashville, Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk -- better-known to Baby Boomers everywhere simply as Melanie -- sounds exactly as one would expect: personable, engaging, down to earth, and, in the slightest way, ever so fragile.

It's hard to believe it's been nearly 45 years since the public got its first glimpse of a once-budding singer, songwriter, actress, and screenwriter at what was supposed to be a modest music festival in upstate New York. There, standing alone at center stage in Woodstock, facing some 400,000 people, she immediately ascended to the throne of Earth Mother, Hippie Chick, and Flower Child Supreme.

"I can't tell you how terrified I was when I played Woodstock," she confesses. "I drove up with my mother. I had no clue. I didn't hear any of the hype or buildup or anything. We started driving, and we hit some traffic and then took a detour, made some phone calls -- no cell phones or emails back then, of course -- and I finally found my way to this little motel in Bethel. And there were all these media trucks and famous people. When I appeared at Woodstock, maybe a small percent, if that, had ever heard of me. I'd never been in a magazine or on TV or anything. I went up an unknown person, and I walked off a celebrity."

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By his own admission, John McEuen is not a household name. Most people, he says, mistake him for Roger McGuinn, erstwhile leader of the Byrds and an early forebear of crossover country rock.  More »

Skinny Lister loves their job

At first glance, the name Skinny Lister may evoke the image of an underweight nerd who's been taunted by his classmates.

In reality though, it's one of those clever band names that leaves a somewhat amorphous impression. In truth, the Lister family were actually innovators in the field of anesthetics, but according to singer/ukulele player Lorna Thomas, their Skinny Lister was a boy that guitarist Dan Hepinstall went to school with.

"We have no idea if he is still skinny, but we will hopefully get a chance to reunite with him one day in the future," Thomas muses. "Hopefully he doesn't mind us nicking his nickname!"

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Singer, songwriter and guitarist Tommy Castro may not be a household name, but amongst denizens of the blues' scene Castro is a living legend. In 2008, the California-based musician cemented his reputation as a searing 12-bar axe man when he took home the Blues Music Award for the Entertainer of the Year. Followers of contemporary blues consider Castro the second coming of John Lee Hooker. Add given the fact that musical nonprofit group, the Blues Foundation, handed Castro the coveted B. B. King Entertainer of the Year prize in 2010, you'll be scratching your head as to why you've never heard of this soulful maestro.

The good news is you can catch up in a big way this Sunday, by jumping aboard the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, which features Castro and his new band the Painkillers.

Earlier this week, New Times had the good fortune to speak to Castro at his Marin County, California home. The gifted six-string player was in good spirits, anxiously awaiting his tour of the East Coast, and looking forward to stepping aboard Holland America's MS Nieuw Amsterdam for the R&B musical high seas adventure.

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