A smoking bowl on the kitchen counter leaves the scent of recently smoked weed lingering in the apartment. More >>

ThePalmBeachPost.com

​Thanks to some dedicated reporting by the Juice's Stefan Kamph, we know that the cornerstone of Palm Beach gossip, Jose Lambiet has a new gig. After seven years as the Page 2 Live blogger and columnist for the Palm Beach Post, he is moving on to a new position as executive editor of Radar Online.

Thus, the man who has tracked down numerous scoops that cross over into music territory -- notably Donald Trump's recent local feud with Rihanna -- is staying in South Florida, but will be packing on the mileage as he begins covering developments in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York.

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America's Backyard: Just like home, if you dance on the bar at home.

​FTL Collective, the blog-about-town when your town is Fort Lauderdale, yesterday decried a smear on the local downtown bar scene: America's Backyard. The wildly popular haunt -- located between Live Nation venue Revolution Live and the tippler's dive Poor House -- is impossible to miss, in part because the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" pumping through its sound system carries for at least two blocks in every direction.

Although Guest Writer Andres starts out strong, titling his piece "The Annihilation of the Human Spirit," this takedown of the cesspool of horny locals and hopeful young tourists forcefully searching for that quintessential spring break experience sometimes doesn't get as angry as it should.

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​Regular County Grind readers will remember that our esteemed colleague Mickie Centrone braved the Fort Lauderdale Bus Loop back in late April, and discovered that the bus drivers will let you spill drinks on them -- and they might even like it. Today, upstart culture blog FTL Collective equates the quarterly event to Christmas, which applies especially if your family celebrates the birth of Jesus by getting pickled in a Winnebago.

FTLC writer Fat Hand (no relation to the Pharcyde's Fatlip), whose writing style reminds us a lot of an astute reviewer once in our employ, took on the task of documenting an evening on the bus loop. Although there were some pint-glass half empty moments that left Fat Hand feeling like Vizzini in The Princess Bride, no hemlock was consumed and some positives stuck out.

Three reasons, based upon FTL Collective's write-up, to go on the Fort Lauderdale Bus Loop next time are below.

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​FTL Collective, a Fort Lauderdale blog that hit the web last week with a mix of local culture and editorial, is celebrating its onslaught on the world wide Interweb with a party dubbed Under the Hood. The shindig is at Fort Lauderdale club 1921, which is most easily found with these video instructions. Judging by the monster truck and the pterodactyl featured on this flier, there's nothing subtle about the way these folks conduct their business or their partying.

No clue if the enigmatic and elusive Dennis Rodman is going to make it on Friday, but County Grind knows a few folks who can attest that the former NBA star, who spends a lot of his time partying locally, is still at it.


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FTL Collective: Healing the minds of South Florida

​Good news for local blog enthusiasts: FTL Collective makes its official debut on the web today. A few friends of County Grind, including a very cuddly DJ, are taking part in the project. According to the collective's Facebook page, the site will be a "cutting edge web log that focuses on everything related to Greater Ft Lauderdale, written by a group of avant-garde bloggers that are dedicated to confounding your cerebellum." Keep it up, gang! And maybe give us something for our medulla oblongata from time to time?

According to the site, an official launch party is planned for June 11. We will post more details once they are announced.

Photo by Kristian Andrew

Goolsby is a serious band

​The charms of New Times contributor Courtney Hambright go well beyond her abilities to pen a clever phrase. We were particularly pleased with her recent profile of local singer-songwriter-goofball Mike Mineo because the reportage included plenty of passages like this:

In the spring of 2006, Mineo, who plays acoustic guitar without a pick so that he can "articulate bass lines," apparently soiled his instrument during a pretty wild gig. "When I started playing, people went apeshit," he says. "I was playing so hard that I cut my finger and didn't even know it. Mountain men were freaking out, and mountain women dragged me home. I let a few of them."

Yep. So anyhow, Hambright's blog is a great read too. After you read Travis Newbill's review of the Mike Mineo album release party, follow it up with her thoughts on the show over at Mood Vane.
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​Local South Florida music bloggers unite! Well, that's REVMiami's idea anyhow. Yesterday, the lovely logo we see above popped up on another South Florida music staple site, Made in Miami Music. The idea is simple: so many folks are toiling away covering their local scenes around the country without a larger community to promote and support the cause. As a provider of local music coverage, Crossfade co-signs 100 percent. (Totally going on our blogroll too!) We asked REVMiami's Ric Delgado a few questions about his new initiative, the Local Music Blogging Network. Read it after the jump.

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​While adding local blog RSS feeds from the Crossfade blogroll to my Google Reader, I noticed a disturbing number of dead links, which made me momentarily sad. Props to The 305, South Florida Classical Review, Radio-Active Records, The HoneyComb, South Florida Punk, Penned Madness, Crown the South, Sweat Records  and many others for your regular typing. You are safe. (Awesome-ish, you are officially on notice.) Resolved, we shall freshen that sidebar with your help.  If your site is not in our blogroll, and you are discussing local music on the regular, we want to read you, repost you and hug you.

It's not every day that music bloggers get encouraged to promote the hell out of their blog in the comments section, but TODAY IS THAT DAY.

​*It's been a while since we checked in on REVMiami, Ric Delgado's webzine that aims to capture the underground music and arts culture of the city -- well, mostly along the Biscayne Corridor. It's been almost a damn year and he's still at it, for which he deserves major kudos. In fact, one of the problems with trying to do this blog roundup is that so many sites start, then fade away a couple months later.

So, this isn't really about a post on the site, but I wanted to point out the site celebrates its one-year anniversary on February 19 at White Room, with performances by a bunch of local favorites like ArtOfficial, Astari Nite, Tristan Clopet, Radioboxer, and so on. Full details (complete with sappy thank-you letter) are here.
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