"So turn it up and break it down / Come on bring that beatbox back," frontwoman Maja Ivarsson demands in a haughty girl tone to the New Wave dance rock of Swedish fivesome The Sounds. Deemed by Blender as one of the "Hottest Women in Rock," Ivarsson brings sex appeal to the band's image and vivacious energy to their live show. The Sounds' Crossing the Rubicon (out this June) is their third album in 10 years and Rolling Stone summed it up in one succinct hypothetical: "What's Swedish for 'meh?'" Foxy Shazam opens. Tues., Sept. 29, 7 p.m., The Ritz Ybor, 1503 E. Seventh Ave., Ybor City, $17 in advance/$19 dos., ritzybor.com. — Leilani Polk
If you lamented last summer’s news that Largo’s Gulf Coast Museum of Art would close, take heart: in March, St. Petersburg College stepped in and acquired the now-defunct museum’s collection before it could leave the area. It's the last week to see the resulting exhibit at SPC’s Florida International Museum, In a New Light: Selections from the Gulf Coast Museum of Art Collection, an exhibition of works from the collection that features art and fine craft by more than 125 regional, national and internationally known artists, among them, Salvador Dalí, Clyde Butcher, Miriam Schapiro and Sam Gilliam.
This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2009.