This was originally published on the Huffington Post Miami and the HuffPo Tech section. Read it again here!

Lets talk about it from Time Piles on Vimeo.

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For years, South Florida-bred artist and daytime software developer Dylan Romer ran around town with a laptop, a camcorder, and an XBox 360 controller. Armed with a BFA from FIU, an MFA from UF, and a homemade program, he created live psychedelic video art that screened at galleries around Miami. He captured events as they happened — people booty-dancing at shows, performance artists writhing, drummers pounding — and translated the images into choppy renderings of reorganized time. Through his program, the world looks like a moving collage of double exposed images.

We caught up with bassist and singer Shannon Shaw of the three-piece Oakland band Shannon and the Clams and asked her some hard hitting questions. These included inquiring about how she decides what to wear onstage and why “the Clams?” She told us all about her unique day job and what it’s like to be one of Seth Bogart’s girls, AKA Hunx and his Punx.

Shaw heads up Shannon and the Clams making emotional, dance-inducing, ’60s inspired garagey surf rock. She’ll be performing solo with a new group on this year’s Bruise Cruise with Ty Segall, Philip Sambol of The Strange Boys, and Lance Wille of Reigning Sound as super-group The Togas. They apparently came together over the telephone line and will be performing cover songs that were selected by those burning away on the Bruise Cruise. Read on to enjoy Shannon’s funny answers to my super thoughtful questions.

With a name like Shannon and the Clams, you think there’d be ladies backing you up! What’s it like leading up two men?

To be honest, I came up with the name Shannon and the Clams when I was a solo performer! It was just me and a bass. It was meant to be a joke. Then I got some people to back me up to play some parties and then it was too late… The shitty name stuck. If I could turn back tahime (please read in a Cher voice) I would have picked a name for the whole band that didn’t point me out, like the Trolls or something. I don’t even feel like I’m leading now, me and lil Cody Blanchard are for sure a team.

Earlier this week, I put together a list of the saddest Christmas songs inspired by the most miserable of them all “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” I even wrote an intro. But last night at the longest midnight mass of all time, I realized, in the midst of a fit of laughter, that Christmas isn’t entirely bad after all.

The family ended up at an Episcopalian church somewhere near Homestead. All smoky with incense, it was like a wooden womb decorated with a great big glowing rainbow cross. I thought the atmosphere was fitting for some jazzy X-mas tunes. Who knew these Anglicans would put us through a two hour service that literally started with Genesis and ended with… well, who knows, we left before the end.

I’ve been very forgetful lately. It’s like I eat delicious meat, I rave about it, and then I totally forget that I’ve even eaten! Then I eat again. Point is, last week, I attended the “grand opening” or maybe “press opening” of Hogzilla’s. The name of this new South Beach restaurant is boner-killer, no lie, but the meat was superb.

Besides the hog, the best thing about Hogzilla’s is that it isn’t a chain. It’s a barbecue restaurant, and probably the only one on the beach. I lured my friend Venessa with the promise of free dinner and drinks. Luckily, I, well Hogzilla, delivered.

The second we arrived we bolted to the feeding station where a man dumped delicious pulled pork onto a bun and suggested some sauces. Sometimes pulled pork can taste like flavorless meat strings in a puddle of water, but these people really know how to pull pork. The sauces were also surprisingly delicious. There was a mango concoction and one that was Jack Daniels-y or something. Either way, all good. The food distracted us from the somewhat over the top “swampy” decor. It stops short of kitsch, but this is the new South Beach, one with like no gays and thus, little style.

We wolfed down bite-sized treats that a more obnoxious person might refer to as tapas, attacking every person with a tray with ravenous enthusiasm. The sides were good enough, probably better in larger portions. However, the gator sausage was so spicy, so good, I would have eaten the whole reptile myself.

I’m so glad I remembered to write this. I am a very hungry fan of swine and especially pulled pork. It’s really a thrill that someone this far south got it right, and really right.

Eat Hogzilla’s at 1555 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Bon appetit!

I didn’t have much time to dedicate to THL this Art Basel Miami Beach. Time is a limited and valuable commodity, and I had to offer all of mine to making income. To all the haters, I think it’s an understandable trade.

I know no one cares about Basel anymore, it was like so two weeks ago. I get it, but I’ve got something left to say. My old roommate and bestie artist Nathan Lam Vuong, who you may know as DJ Sticky Rice, came into town from Los Angeles and enjoyed the week with me. I planned out a packed week of art, parties, work, and socializing, because I’m an obsessive hyper-planner and I had to budget time for writing. You can check out some highlights from our week on Nate’s Tumblr, and/or you can read about them here. Do both.

We had fun. I must say, it was a good time. I started the week before Nate got here farting around town with Bleeding Palm. We went by Pulse and Scope and Design Miami and the MOCA party – Miami’s Mark Handforth’s work is big and badass – and the French party at the old Perrotin space, ending the night at the Roofless Records party at Churchill’s. Some guy from Patrick McMullen took our photo, made me feel special. That was all in one evening. The freaking party at the former Perrotin space was again a blast. Every year, the best, the end. There were definitely less people than in the past this Basel, but it didn’t take away from the free-flowing wine and awesomely bad dance music. As usual, they ran out of glasses and I made the guy pour out a Sprite can to fill with up with spirits. There’s a Lil Kim joke in there somewhere.

If there is one man in Miami, in possibly the whole southeastern United States, whose mixtapes you want in your possession, that man is Abel Folgar. If you don’t believe me, then you clearly haven’t been paying attention to his ridiculously ambitious 4,000 Albums That Matter series we’ve been posting on The Heat Lightning for months. He knows his shit better than most of you do, but he’s not a bitch about it. Let him guide you on an intimate sonic journey with a mixed musical compilation. All you have to do is be the 127th person to repost part FOURTEEN of his albums that matter on Facebook.

This is special, guys. Like really special. This is the kind of gift that people would kill their cousins over. The kind of present they would promise to give to their dying grandmother but then keep for themselves as she withers away before them.

Look at Abel all dapper, the perfect a wedding guest. It’s true that most of you have never seen him lookin’ so cleaned up, but it can happen. This is evidence. What can also happen is you can own an incredible body of music from this slick dude’s massive collection.

REPOST people. Repost with pride.

Remember how Beings made everyone all weepy and cranky this summer by breaking up? Yeah, thanks guys. Poor Jose Flores was a bit heartbroken, and even took the time to write about the breakup up on our THL Miami Music Week. I’m exaggerating, he wasn’t actually heartbroken, but he did note, “Of course, now that they’ve broken up, I just want more Beings.” Well, he and we all are in luck, because Jared McKay, one half of Coral Morphologic and a whole lotta Discosoma Records, managed to put together one last sonic hurrah with the release of the new Beings’ EP Social Creep. Discosoma pressed only one hundred of these little glow-in-the-dark vinyl babies. The cover art glows too. Spooky.

Part the fourteenth where our humble narrator and guide tries to posit certain tautologies concerning his interpretation of “classic” punk rock albums, excessively contrived “pieces of shit” albums “crammed down our throats” by that HIV-ridden whore of an era known collectively as “the early 90’s,” presents a number of excellent blues platters, reveals the truth behind the Buzzcocks’ continued successes, ends on a somewhat not-so-positive positive African note and sails into the oblivion of his clearly pathetic and lonely life in total defiance of the English Language and her Grammars and Spellings. Boasting more “mistakes” by the digital foot than any other website in the world, we soldier on! [This last statement has not been approved and/or endorsed by the high sheriffs of The Heat Lightning and related digital enterprises, AF] Touch!

326. THE MINUTEMEN — DOUBLE NICKELS ON THE DIME. Ahh… it only took three hundred odd albums to get to this, but how fucking awesome is this disc? Incredible. Flawless. And unfortunately, out of its forty-odd tracks, you only know the first five seconds of “Corona.” Or like a kid once asked, “ain’t that the Jackass theme song?” Indeed. So fucking good. All of it. Five cents deposit!

As you already know, we at THL are excited about Drown, tonight’s show at General Practice. Our friends of M.B. Evans will be performing there together for the first time since the summer of 2000. Guitarist and vocalist Roger Rimada of former Ecstatic Peace noise band Monotract, THL contributor, and old (literally old) friend, conversed with us about this band of his youth.

The super old school Miami group has joined forces again this Art Basel to perform songs they wrote in the nineties. Such a sweet idea, it’s almost romantic. We chatted with Rimada about the other band members and being fatter than James Murphy.

me:  ‪So, I haven’t seen you perform since like 2006. What have you been up to since then? I know Monotract is still about in some form.‬

rogerrimada:  ‪Not really.  Monotract is effectively dead until the 30th year anniversary live from La Carreta parking lot.  Nancy (Garcia) does her own thing and so does Carlos (Giffoni).  I’ve been mostly out of music aside from some weekly jams with friends and I new project I’m doing with my old bro/former M.B. Evans guitarist Daniel Laburu called ‘Grenadier’.  We’ve played a few shows in NYC and we’ll likely play a few more very soon.  We’re just kinda cranking it up.  Also in that band are Alberto Laburu and Daniel Clapp, two other legacy Miami boyz.  It’s kinda indie rock right now but it’s spreading like a Flanigan’s rib-wing combo.‬