In the mid-’00s, guitarist and songwriter Benjamin Curtis enjoyed moderate success as one-fourth of Secret Machines. That New York act specialized in hefty, high-power space rock that never met an effects pedal it didn’t like. When Curtis split in 2007 to focus on his new project, School of Seven Bells,…

If the mother-daughter age difference in The House of Bernarda Alba seems accurate, that’s because it is. Staged at the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater, Bernarda Alba is a first-time mashup between area stage actors and aspiring University of Miami theater students. A new bridge program between the Arsht Center…

The increasingly distant connection between food — the stuff that grows, walks, flies, and/or swims — and “food” — the semi-edible material that pops out of a box, can, or drive-thru window, is the source of much contemporary hand-wringing. But how did food become “food”? The question is political, anthropological,…

Swedish power-poppers the Sounds have been saddled with Blondie comparisons since the beginning. It’s an obvious but accurate tag. Like that legendary New York New Wave act, the Sounds are fronted by an unforgettable, high-cheekboned, blond beauty with a fierce stage presence and sharp style. But musically, the comparison isn’t…

Clarence Reid remains one of the great undersung musical legends of Miami. As the lore goes, in 1952, at the age of 13, he hitched a ride to the Magic City from his native Georgia. There, he was already infamous for passing the time while working cotton fields by singing…

Though you’re supposed to always claim a book is better than its resulting movie version, that might not be the case with the 1976 cult flick The Man Who Fell to Earth. Sure, the source material, a 1963 novel of the same title by Walter Tevis, is a decent read…

House producer and DJ known as Laidback Luke first got his kicks in his native Holland as a graffiti artist. When the thrill of the physical and legal danger wore off around the mid-Nineties, he turned to music. Still, he preserved the sly cunning of the graffiti writer in the…

Paul Isaac, of local New Wave-inflected foursome People From Venus, is best known around town as a rock frontman. But close followers of the band might have noticed that his and the other members’ artistic aspirations have always seemed to extend beyond music. Everything People From Venus does is usually…

Dance music flavors come and go, but you’ve got to hand it to the dirty Dutch. Heading into the last quarter of 2011, clubs, radio, and your average frozen yogurt joint are all throbbing to the new sounds of Dutch house. The subgenre is instantly recognizable for its fast bpm…

While dubstep dominates the electronic music scene, most U.S. fans associate the genre only with certain popular strains — mostly the superhard, stomach-churning varieties with requisite wobbly bass. Still, the genre at its outset was about so much more. Dubstep at its most creative is really just a slow-bpm, low-end-centric…

Miami’s late, great girl-punk act A.K.A. was much lamented when it went bust. But late last year, the act retooled with a slightly different lineup: Lori Garrote, Natalie Smallish, and Jordan Calloway. It also debuted an appropriately fresh name: the New. The name clearly signaled good things to come. Just…