Friday the 13th is a day notoriously associated with horror, death and unfortunate events. Hailing all the way from sunny Huntington Beach, California, 26-year-old singer/songwriter Matt Costa is probably the furthest you can get from the thrill and fright usually associated with this day. Instead, the songs of Matt Costa are usually bright, upbeat, acoustic guitar numbers with a smoothness that reflects his days of gliding across the concrete as an almost professional skateboarder.

After turning to music when a skateboarding accident left him bedridden, Costa made some early recordings that may remind you of the angst-driven works of Bright Eyes, circa A Collection of Songs. Today his spirits are much different, though, as he plays “Sweet Rose,” a song about his strong relationship with a significant other, or current single “Mr. Pitiful.”

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Lining a block’s worth of wall space outside Downtown Miami’s Studio A resides a crowd that the neighborhood’s predominantly government-funded population may find surprisingly older than they’re used to. Instead of the “emo” or “scene” crowd the venue usually caters to, tonight you’ll find a college-age and twentysomething crowd gathered. The occasion: Nada Surf’s return to South Florida after an almost five-year break from the Sunshine State.

Opening about two hours late (according to the 6:30 p.m. show time on the Ticketmaster stubs) the club is set up a little different tonight. Merch is in the back, the bars are open, and lounge areas are filled to the brim. Shortly after doors, Kansas City, Missouri, “buzz band” the Republic Tigers take the stage and start off the night with their unique blend of indie dance rock with a tinge of ’80s fashion. Once they finish their set, three convex mirrors are lined up behind the kit of Nada Surf drummer Ira Elliot and the crowd waits in anticipation.

As the band casually walks onstage, my attention turns from the pack of drunk girls on my left to bassist Daniel Lorca’s sweeping dreadlocks as he gracefully strums his bass and smokes a cigarette like he’s been doing it all his life.

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As I walked in from one of the many afternoon showers currently plaguing South Florida’s summer months, the Culture Room’s AC brought chills down my spine. Brad Skistimas of Five Times August had just wrapped up his acoustic set, and Birmingham, Alabama, natives Wild Sweet Orange were busy setting up their seemingly intricate stage setup.

A somewhat generic drum sample played over the house speakers, and ambient guitar swelled courtesy of guitarist Taylor Shaw. When Chip Kilpatrick’s crackling live drums finally kicked in, singer/guitarist Preston Lovinggood followed. Introducing the packed crowd to his resilient and intimate timbre, Lovinggood sang in the vein of the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy and Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam. Not only does he take the best that indie-folk has to offer and make it his own, Lovinggood’s curly hair and stature make him easy to confuse with Canadian writer/actor Seth Rogen, star of “Knocked Up.”

After a few more twang-based and acoustic-guitar-driven folk tunes, Lovinggood went on to compliment South Florida’s “brown-haired ladies” and bipolar weather. Beginning a song I found familiar — “Land of No Return” — Wild Sweet Orange mellowed out the previously upbeat atmosphere with felt mallets played on drums and cymbals and deeply spacey guitar effects feeding through the amplifiers. Picking up the pace once more, the band went into an aggressively relaxed song “about the suburbs,” as Lovinggood described it. Read more…

Just a few short days after joining his ex-band, the Receiving End of Sirens, for one of their last shows in Providence, Rhode Island, Casey Crescenzo was back where he belonged — onstage fronting his now full-time project, the Dear Hunter (TDH). The group recently opened for the trendy Fall of Troy in front of a sold-out crowd at Miami’s hipster rock club Studio A.

As the stage lights dimmed, looped ambiance began to take over the soundscape glam-punk band Foxy Shazam had dominated a good 20 minutes prior. Once the band walked onstage, guitarist Erick Serna slowly contributed to the atmosphere with an assortment of ethereal tones, sweeps and rhythms. Before long, the whole band had joined in a Mars-Volta-style post-rock jam session — an atmosphere that would last through their set.

As the ambiance died down, the Dear Hunter started their set with a hymnal intro track that transitioned from influence seemingly found in composer Brian Eno to that of Crescenzo’s former band, the Receiving End of Sirens (TREOS). As the set continued, a TREOS influence was felt in the backbone of almost every song as Crescenzo sang as if he were reliving the very moment each song was written in. It’s this passion that helped win over a small fraction of the Fall of Troy’s rough crowd.

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It was a hot Miami day and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect out of a band named Foxy Shazam. Something in the vein of that ’70s one-hit-wonder funk group Foxy, or maybe Foxy Cleopatra from the third Austin Powers film … who knows? Already disillusioned from the 98° weather outside, the last thing I needed was to witness what I can only imagine to be the visual representation of Prince on an acid trip mixed with the unpredictably appealing mix of glam-punk and neo-soul.

Between a keyboardist whose occupation must be confused for a rabbi’s, rather than a touring musician’s, on account of his long and nappy beard, to the seemingly endless amount of stage dives singer Eric Nally insisted on, regardless to the not-so-impressed audience pushing him back onstage, Foxy Shazam’s set was nothing short of a spectacle. “There’s no more good songs left write,” recited Nally in a drunken ramble, all while playing a human piano over keyboardist Schuyler White’s hunched back. “You want to know why?” he yelled. “Because the Beatles took ‘em all!”

Apparently there were a few Beatles fans in the room, because the crowd ate it up. About three songs into Foxy’s opening slot for experimental prog-rockers the Fall of Troy, the crowd at Miami’s Studio A weren’t the only ones eating things up. Nally had started collecting cigarettes from fans during the previous song and proceeded to stick half a dozen of them into his mouth. Light, puff and swallow seems to be Nally’s routine with cigarettes.

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Melodies overlaid in loops and auto-tuned preciseness resonate across the room. The lyrics “Outside, I lay tongue-tied/ Oh, help me escape now/ ‘Cause I’m on the brink now” escape the chapped lips of Dan Hunter, the sole permanent member of PlayRadioPlay! (PRP!). Tonight he opens his set with the first track off his newly released debut album, Texas, to a small but devoted crowd of Yellowcard fans at Ft. Lauderdale’s Culture Room. Catch him anywhere in or around the Ft. Worth, Texas, area and the turnout is guaranteed to be much larger.

The aforementioned song is titled “Loco Commotion,” and it’s one of the main reasons this 17-year-old former drug addict and born-again Christian is so far from the Lone Star State. On account of his massive MySpace popularity (11 million plays and counting) and the close relationship he still keeps with fans online, PRP! signed to Island Records early last year.

“Confines of Gravity” — a song off last spring’s The Frequency EP — follows and generates the best crowd reaction of the night, second only to current single “Madi Don’t Leave.” Written about his on-again, off-again girlfriend, and his hopes to “Run away to the East Coast/ Or Seattle/ Compass or St. Marcus,” the song builds on a keyboard-driven ambience and dynamic build-ups before kicking into the dance beat of its chorus.

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	You R Here user Shelly snapped these shots of the Long Hair Don’t Care Tour, featuring Valencia, the Cab, Charlotte Sometimes and We the Kings, in Gainesville, Florida.

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	You R Here user leo25031 shot these photos (and many more) of Gym Class Heroes performing at the Honda Grand Prix in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Sunday.

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New You R Here user DRIZZLE snapped some shots of Flo-Rida performing in — where else? — Florida during spring break.

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House lights dim, club lights flash, and the party has just begun. It’s a Saturday night and the Seattle indie-funk band Danger Radio have just hit the stage with a roar of energy. Most of their set finds vocalist Andrew De Torres dancing around the crowded stage while his perfect pitch and heartbreak-inspired lyrics hit soft spots with the predominately 16-and-under crowd. We’re in the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida’s small but popular music venue the Culture Room, and excitement abounds. Not so much for the band onstage (though they’re arguably the best live performers), but for those coming. Envy on the Coast (EotC) are next, with Pac Sun Tour headliners the Audition following.

Once EotC hit the stage, shrieks rivaled only by those of ’90s boy band excitement were heard across the venue, and “Ryan, you’re so hot!” chants were far from few for the frontman. Annoyances generated by the “fans” aside, EotC put on a solid performance, playing tracks off their Envy on the Coast EP and newly released full-length, Lucy Gray. Of the EP songs, “Suckerpunch” was the best received, but nothing compared to the reaction of current single “Sugar Skulls” from Lucy Gray. After an almost hour-long set, EotC finally walked off the stage to the best response of the night.

As the anticipation for headliners the Audition increased, so did the heat and numbers. It seemed as if the whole Ft. Lauderdale scene were coming out of the woodwork, and just when it felt like the floor couldn’t get anymore cramped, the Audition hit the stage. Their second full-length album, Champion, was two days away from finally seeing release, and the band looked more than pumped to play the almost sold-out South Florida crowd.

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