Tim Sukits

Category: Creative Loafing

  • Milking it: The 1st Annual Harvey Milk Festival aims to entertain while getting the word out about the fight for LGBT civil rights

    Milking it: The 1st Annual Harvey Milk Festival aims to entertain while getting the word out about the fight for LGBT civil rights

    Published May 20, 2010 “My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you.” Harvey Milk Festival 1-10 p.m. Sat., May 22, Rosemary District, 5th St. and Central Ave., Sarasota, 228-4872 orharveymilkfestival.com; The Milk Collection Art Opening: 6-9 p.m. Fri., May 21, Pure Luxe, 513 Central Ave., Sarasota, 364-5800 or pureluxeonline.com. Shannon Fortner sits in her home just north of the Rosemary District flipping through a small notebook filled cover to cover with phone numbers, hastily scribbled notes and artistic doodles. “This is my Harvey Milk book,” she explains, her scratchy voice straining with exhaustion. The volume was nothing but blank pages not two months ago when she decided to start organizing the Harvey Milk Festival just before traveling to England to visit her girlfriend of three years. Fortner’s partner was her inspiration for the festival. The U.K. native has been limited to no more than 90-day stays in the U.S. due to the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that same-sex partners of U.S. citizens are not granted permission to be sponsored for family-based immigration. So Fortner, a long-time civil rights activist and lead singer of local bandsMeteorEyes and Spontaneous Habit, decided to spend much of her two-week vacation on the phone putting together the event to raise awareness about laws that she sees as discriminatory toward Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals. (more…)

  • Vlad the Educator: One of the world’s greatest pianists teams up with his former student to open Cultural Center Miracle in North Port

    Published December 15, 2010
    Cultural Center Miracle Grand Opening Open house noon-4 p.m., Black Tie charity dinner 5 p.m. Sat., Dec. 18, Cultural Center Miracle, 5400 S. Biscayne Dr., Suite C., North Port, 564-6215 or culturalcentermiracle.org, free.
    Among Sarasota County’s municipalities, the city of North Port has always been overshadowed by Sarasota’s vast cultural offerings. But a world-renowned pianist named Vladislav Kovalsky is determined to spread the artistic love south. With the launch of Cultural Center Miracle, Kovalsky hopes to provide children with limited financial means the opportunity to take top-quality music lessons.
    The nonprofit will host an open house this Saturday to introduce the center and its mission to the public, followed by a black tie fundraiser aimed at racking up cash for scholarships and instruments for less fortunate kids. Kovalsky, a graduate of Russia’s prestigious St. Petersburg Conservatory and a Steinway-sponsored artist, will perform at the black tie dinner to kick off his life’s dream. After three decades of teaching piano, he has always viewed music as something that defies status and class. (more…)

  • The Local Original: Artists of the 941 are called to crank it up once again with submissions for Noise Ordinance 2 now being accepted

    Published December 8, 2010 If you happened to attend the first incarnation of Noise Ordinance back in February, then you have a pretty good idea why it won the title of “Best Local Music Festival” in our Best of the Suncoast Readers’ Poll last month. The hyper-local, yet intriguingly unfamiliar gathering helped to introduce the various sub-scenes of our largely splintered music community to one another, revealing for the first time a complete picture of what the “Suncoast music scene” actually looks like. Bands saw their fellow area musicians displaying high morale and excited about the uniquely artistic environment they were creating.  And everyone finally seemed to figure out where they fit within the larger local scene, respecting and supporting the contributions from each part of the whole. Since that first go around, Noise Ordinance co-founders Claire Franklin, Katherine Derr and Ed Midler createdSarasotaMusicScene.com along with promoter Chris Falk. Falk has since moved to Michigan, but that won’t stop the remaining trio from bringing back Sarasota’s original music showcase in the form of Noise Ordinance 2, now officially presented bySarasotaMusicScene.com. With the submission selection process fully underway months ahead of last year’s call out, SMS plans to follow up a successful first year event with a mind blowing sequel. (more…)

  • Rock this way: The Rockstarr Bentley Landing Party is really Five Points Collective’s first lesson in musical promotion through community collaboration

    Published December 1, 2010 The Rockstarr Bentley Landing Party Presented by Five Points Collective with a portion of the proceeds benefiting Suncoast Charities for Children, 7 p.m. Sun., Dec. 5, Payne Park Auditorium, 2100 E. Laurel St., Sarasota, rockstarrbentley.com, $10 advance, $15 at the door. As I finish the last spoonful of my beef and vegetable soup, I look up to see two members of Rockstarr Bentley approaching my table from the other end of Word of Mouth’s patio — right on time for our interview. They are suited in full stage attire, guitarist Rocky Bentley in tight leather pants, sparkly shirt, furry top hat, and 4-inch KISS-style shit-kickers, trailed by DeeJay Imminent sporting a Legion of Doom get up with spray-painted shoulder pads, fake chains and a black boa. An older couple at the table next to us aren’t quite sure what to think. “Greetings, Earthling,” they take turns saying in a campy ’80s sci-fi movie tone. I ask the obvious opener: “So what planet are you guys from?” They proceed to regale me with the back-story of their fictional extraterrestrial origin. Since crash landing their spaceship into a foreclosed house in north Sarasota, they have been trying to receive transmissions from their planet, which they cannot remember the name of due to ill effects resulting from their prolonged hyperbaric space travel. So, they’ve been studying human pop culture in order to adapt, all while rehearsing in a secret underground missile silo hidden underneath a large sculpture in Sarasota. (more…)

  • Garbage Pail Kids: The four teenage members of The Garbage Men use music to drive home their eco-friendly message

    Published November 24, 2010 If you frequent some of the regular art walks and farmerss markets around Sarasota, you may have seen a band of teens entertaining crowds with some rather unorthodox versions of your favorite Beatles songs. But these covers are no mash-up, more like a trash-up, because they’re played on trash. Literally. The Garbage Men — comprised of a quartet of Pine View freshmen — started their band last summer as a way to not only have some fun playing music, but to draw attention to green living and what can be accomplished through recycling and a little ingenuity. Seeing how they all play on instruments salvaged from random household items, they’re obviously not lacking in the imagination department. But what they’ve managed to use as building material is quite impressive. Lead guitarist Jack shreds up a yardstick guitar neck with toothpicks in place of frets and a Mini Wheats box to hold the rig together (I guess it’s a hollow body…). Bassist Alex gears up with a fretless section of stairway banister attached to a large cigar box. Horn player Harrison mostly works with PVC piping and funnels as opposed to your standard brass. And percussionist Ollie rounds out the outfit with the most fitting setup of all: a trashcan drum kit. (more…)

  • The Local Original: Getting paid for musical art is not a Suncoast tradition

    Published November 17, 2010 Original music artists to the Suncoast: “Show me the money!” A few weeks back I received a letter from a local musician who’s been playing original music around the Suncoast for over 30 years. Since age 15 he has watched the local scene ebb and flow, and countless bands and venues come and go. He wrote to me from this perspective in an effort to shed light on a huge problem that the Suncoast has seemingly always suffered from: musicians’ inability to find decent compensation for their original music. I find there are three root causes for this local phenomenon, some more easily solved than others depending on which you think are easier to change — bad habits or local laws. The artist, who chose to remain anonymous, touched on one big culprit in his letter: “The local club owners have figured out that a 21-year-old artist who is living with Mom and Dad is happy just to have the ‘opportunity’ to play their music. So, the club owner gives them as little money (many times none) as he can get away with … Until that kid gets a few years older and starts to need money. At that point, the choices are to get a straight job, play for next to nothing, leave town, or play covers.” (more…)