Andy Beta

Even in the flannel-flapping grunge era, The Juan Maclean pretended he was I, Cyborg in his old band, Six Finger Satellite. A decade on, post-rock-band breakup and crack-rock breakdown, he again dons the chrome pate, made fashionable anew in a century populated by Daft Punk and the return of Battlestar...

Last year marked the inaugural local installment of the traveling hip-hop extravaganza known as Rock the Bells. Breathing some much-needed golden-age and conscious-type air into Miami's bling-ridden environs, the lineup featured everyone from Jedi Mind Tricks to Mos Def and Talib Kweli to Nas to a recently reunited Wu-Tang Clan...

While its slacker neighbors in Austin were busy making Gordian prog-punk or bluegrass covers of Snoop Dogg tracks, Spoon obsessed with the Pixies, overachieved, and got a major indie (and then a major) deal out of it. As it got dropped from Elektra and dropped the "The Agony of Laffitte"...

Don't blame the fiery Pérez Prado for that enervating Louie Vega remake of "Mambo #5," though you could possibly blame him for Ricky Ricardo, as well as America's continuing obsession with the sensual Latino experience. Even James Brown's infamous grunts and "hunh"s are echoed in the hollers of this diminutive...

If the Rub 'n' Tug dudes (Thomas Bullock and Eric Duncan) can jerk a happy ending out of Coldplay's limp "Square One," then why can't they get this one off? While their DJ mixes are sloppy drunk, all bleary-eyed on the EQs, when saddling up alongside New York's cowbell kings,...