So I’m on the bus, not the real bus, an independent thing, but like a bus, just me and the driver, near the last stop, which is my stop. He points out how there’s many people walking around downtown Miami. “Uh, it’s a nice day,” I say. He’s some kind…
How beautifully perfectly ironic it is to get your ass kicked by your own damn livelihood. I mean, all day hanging in the ‘hood with the big dogs, all night floundering around South Beach, no problems really, no injuries certainly, finally to the safety of home, where I walk into…
Up and down, mostly up, as in no sleep, but who needs that anyway? So you get a little dizzy, a few hallucinations and some way strange pains in your ears and the back of your head, and your body feels like it’s filled with live wasps and your eyes…
Steve Ellis doesn’t seem to mind his day job as much as he resents the difficulties of finding the right musicians to work with. He will moan on at length about the trouble he’s had putting together a band and a sound he’s happy with, but you have to drag…
Allow me to explain. My life sucks. And I couldn’t be more grateful for it. I regret the past and resent the future and find it impossible to live in the present. But I’ve got ears and eyes and arms and legs and I’ve got Heaven, as that butthorn Robyn…
It’s about nine o’clock Saturday morning and the rain pounds down. Keith Schantz, manager of the Miami-based rock band Natural Causes, negotiates the cluttered alley behind the Stephen Talkhouse, parking in front of a half-dozen tattered derelicts huddled in a Dumpster shed. Schantz tries to get in the back door…
I gotta get out more. I gotta spend more time in the office. I need little but I want more. Still more rumors swirling around Marilyn Manson. Stop it. Spreading rumors is my job. Some weeks ago we told you that the group’s deal with Nothing/Interscope was not off, that…
Baker Don’t you know who I am? No, me neither. After paying five bucks to not see Nil Lara live at Stephen Talkhouse (see “Butthorn of the week” below), I was looking for something to do on the streets of South Beach when I bumped into Rene Alvarez of Forget…
In this great future you can’t forget your past So dry your tears, I say — Bob Marley This is not a story about Bob Marley. That story’s been done and done and done to death. We know Robert Nesta Marley died on May 11, 1981, in Cedars of Lebanon,…
Melissa likes girls. Now can we please move on? Five years ago Melissa Etheridge told New Times readers that she had no idea what ingredients go into the recipe for rock stardom. That was back in the spring of 1989, on the high heels of her startling first album. She…
Now that we publish the paper on Thursday, this column feels even more dated. Of course a daily column in a daily paper is what it’d take to come close to giving the rock of South Florida the coverage it deserves; we’re doing the best we can. Not that I…
On a weekday afternoon Churchill’s Hideaway is not crowded. Elbowing the bar are two older men in dress suits, and a younger man in similar garb. There’s a talkative woman, a couple of average looking guys in jeans, and a truck driver who looks like an actor playing the role…
My wife is a genius, but I never mention her because she likes anonymity. (You would too if you were married to me.) She does all kinds of things, including she reads like 30 or 40 hardcovers a day, occasionally turning me on to — well, for example, how this…
The rock of South Florida’s Sixties is about to be born again, thanks to a reunion of some of the era’s stars. Exactly 28 years ago, the WFUN-AM Boss Survey had the Kinks at number one with “A Well-Respected Man.” Also hitting the charts that week: Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones,…
In the great cosmic connection, karma, whatever you call reality, I’m the man. That’s what they say: Dude, you the man. My power and influence over South Florida’s rock scene is immeasurable, my word is gold, I rule. Don’t believe me? Okay, a recent example, then. Not long ago I…
The last day of 1988 — the last day of Miami as a town with competing daily newspapers — also marked a first: the uniting of Miami News employees, the paper’s readers, other local journalists, the entire community. On this dire day, all Miamians shared the loss that had been…
To me it was one of the coolest things I’d seen in 30 years of visiting the Everglades, but Lenny is from Queens. He didn’t even want to stop the Honda for a closer look. I tried to be understanding of my urbanite pal — we had been cruising around…
All my life I always said I’d never live past age 36. That’s how old was my personal savior, Marilyn Monroe, when she was murdered by the pigs or accidentally overdosed herself or — and I really doubt this — committed suicide. Besides, it makes a great excuse: So what…
Most musicians resent categorization, hate being compared to other musicians. Critics, on the other hand, rely on comparison to give consumers some idea of the band’s sound — oh, dude, it’s like if Deborah Harry fronted the Beatles (or whatever). The musicians are right, really — it’s pretty much an…
I know I don’t act like it around here, I know you can’t really tell, but I am a trained professional journalist with nearly twenty years’ experience. I haven’t had many teachers, but the few I’ve had were the best. Mrs. Murphy in high school taught me the basics. Professor…
Damn it, Lionel, this would’ve been the perfect time. Why didn’t you go on national television and hype it? Oh, that’s right, you did. But America didn’t listen, did it, Mr. Goldbart? America refuses to adopt your new calendar, the one that would equal out the number of days in…
Welcome to my house full of junk. My wife has completed the biggest project since the building of Hoover Dam or the cutting of the Tamiami Trail, covering every wall and filling every nook in the house with spiffy wood racks on which she’s organized and alphabetized the two or…
