Miami New Times' Mastermind Awards honors the city's most inspiring
creatives. As we approach Artopia, our annual arts soiree where we'll
announce the three Mastermind winners March 8, we're profiling each of
our nine 2012 finalists. For tickets and more information about Artopia,
visit the website.
Audio Junkie
Hailing originally from Santo Domingo in
the Dominican Republic, brothers Eduardo and Gregorio Alvarez are the
co-creators of Audio Junkie, an ongoing video journal that examines the
ancient human obsession with sound. The pathway for this exploration is
documentation of and interviews with local musicians. The bros are also
bandmates; their musical moniker is The Jellyfish Brothers.
"We
started our passion for sound and music ever since we were little
kids," says Greg, whose Spanish accent still lingers -- not surprising,
since the boys landed stateside in their late teens. "Our grandfather
used to take us to go see all the movies in the theaters, like all the
Hitchcock movies and Quentin Tarantino movies, and we just fell in love
with sound and soundtrack and how every sound creates an emotion. And we
sort of became junkies then."
This lifelong interest motivated them to start documenting what they saw as the burgeoning Miami music scene through their video diaries. "Everybody can say that Miami has no scene, that there's no place to play, that there's no bands. But you can tell from our show -- one second you have noise acts, the next you have a pop Spanish rock band, and then you have something crazy like Ice Cream [see video above]. There's so much out there and we just wanted to present it to a crowd that would appreciate it."
Each episode is shot by co-collaborator Ron Gesualdo and starts with an eerie introduction, courtesy of the boys' friend John Caignet. This intro is accompanied by trippy sound-play reminiscent of TV shows of yesteryear. "We love Star Trek episodes and Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, all of that stuff," Greg explains.
Bands they've featured since the start of the project late last year include the soulful and groovy Raja Khan, experimental blues-rock band Deaf Poets, experimental Spanglish folk rockers Arboles Libres, and the ear-scintillating electric ivory ticklers, Animal Tropical.
Not willing to limit by generation or genre the musical mastery they feature, the duo plans to work with Afro-Cuban bata drummer Ezequiel Torres in the near future. "He does, like, a Santeria kind of music," says Greg. "I absolutely love bringing that kind of culture to the young people. Every beat that he makes is attributed to nature -- this beat is about the air, this beat is about the water. Audio isn't just rock; it's everything that goes on around us."
Finalists:
Agustina Woodgate
Honorable Mentions:
The Project [theatre]
Funner Projects
Robert Chumbley
Charo Oquet
Team Danger
Sarah Kontoff Baker
Jason Snyder
Valeria Yamamoto
Jayme Gershen
Follow Cultist on Facebook and Twitter @CultistMiami.
